Friday night afternoon was packing day and then meeting at the quad at 6PM to get ready to leave for Taupo. Now Taupo is about a 3.5-4 hour drive away, but the plan actually intended for us to arrive at the campsite between 1:30AM and 2AM. Why? Well we did a massive pub crawl all the way down the country. Four buses loaded with about 17 people each ventured south, along with carloads of others to the event. While the pubs themselves were fun, I think the bus was way more fun. Oddly enough, drinking (alcohol) in a car is totally legal here, in fact the driver can even drink as long as his BAC is below the legal limit. Don't worry mom, the drivers didn't drink. Anyways, the drive was amazing, meeting new people and drinking and playing games on the side of the highway all the way down.
My bus and one other arrived at 1:45AM as planned. Unfortunately, one of the other buses had a flat tire the town back, which was about an hour away. And of course, that was the bus with everyone's stuff on it. So, our bus dropped us off and went back for the other since their flat tire had a sheered bolt and they couldn't get it off to use. Without explaining too much of the complication, we ended up watching fire twirlers for a little while. And then, once everyone else with tents went to bed, my fellow travelers and I spent time walking around a pitch black campsite and sitting outside the bathroom dressed in our costumes. Finally the bus came at around 4:30 and after making my tent in the dark I finally fell asleep around 5 to 5:30.
A full night of sleep ensued with wake up call at 8AM. Sign ups for rafting or kayaking, breakfast, and then getting dressed in polypro tops and togs (swim trunks). Polypro is basically a plastic material that retains heat when wet so it's good for water sports, and it's infamous for being striped. So I found the stripiest of the bunch and wore them with my striped togs. Anyways, Saturday's river sport for me was rafting. We were on a mini raft with a professional raft guide who took every opportunity possible to flip the boat over. So we ended up swimming or paddling an upside down raft over almost every rapid. We also took a break at one point to eat wild blackberries growing on the side of the river. After one recovery from flipping the boat I ended up in the back of the raft in the guide position so I ended up guiding the boat. It was fun getting to steer and I accidentally rammed us into a tree so the people in front were not the happiest; luckily I was in back of the raft. |
| Huka Falls (waterfall behind me) |
Following a day on the river and the sausage sizzle for lunch, my friend Matt and another one of the kayakers from the club decided to go kayak the evening run with on the nearby Huka falls. Basically a narrow gorge with a massive waterfall at the end. It was very cool to watch and a gorgeous area in general.
After returning to the campsite and cooking dinner with Rose and her friend from a previous trip the partying began. All 100 people on the trip put on costumes and there was a massive party set up in the campground. Some notable costumes were Lance Armstrong, a morph suit, and myself as Mario, and Matt as a penguin. Luckily I was able to go to bed around 1 on Saturday, listening to the ending of the party. The party was all good fun and sleep certainly didn't come too difficultly.
Sunday morning was sign ups for rafting or kayaking again. This time I ended up going white water kayaking. It is much harder than I would have expected and the boat does not track in nearly the same way as a sea kayak does. And of course, practicing my T-rescue with Rose who is an amazing kayaker resulted in my second swim and wet exit in a white water kayak. Somehow I fell out of the boat (unintentionally) when I flipped upside down (intentionally) even with the spray skirt still on. The rest of the kayaking was good fun and the current eddies and other water features certainly make it difficult to know how the boat was going to react to an inexperienced kayaker like myself.
After the run we hung out at the take out for a while. Since the Waikato river is geothermally heated, and the edge of the river had a beach we were able to dig ourselves hot pools lined with rocks at the riverside. I'm pretty sure we built such a long makeshift hot tub that about 20 people were in it. The mixture of hot and cold water was perfect, but digging too deep resulted in some painfully hot sensations on hands and feet. The rest of the day was pretty easy: lunch, return to camp, clean up, and drive back. We got back at around 10 and the evening concluded as I took a much needed full night's sleep.
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