Time to Stray

Will dropped me off at a designated street corner in Auckland at 715ish AM for my Stray bus tour.  I anxiously waited for my fellow travelers to join me.  Unfortunately one of the first guys I met was German, but everyone else was pretty cool. I'm only kidding, I also hated the Irishman.  After a few of us assembled, our bus driver, Karlyn, showed up and told us it was his first day on the job.  For a second a few of us were nervous because he kept circling back to the same alley while we were picking up more passengers from their hostels, but it turned out to be because a girl no-showed. 

On our first day of the bus trip we did introductions to help break the ice and get to know each other.  I was the funniest and best looking, naturally (This is my blog, so this is the way it happened dammit! Just pretend it's true). So with 11 more friends than I've ever had in my life, we were on our way.  I was appointed to be the one responsible for counting to make sure everyone was on the bus...so unfair! The first day of travel was pretty chill. After exiting Auckland, we started to make our way to a surfer paradise called Raglan, but first we had to check out some scenery, including a waterfall!

Was I singing TLC Waterfalls in my head when I saw this? No, I'm way too cool for that... I was listening to it on my iPod

After arriving, we split up into rooms and I boarded with my newly found friends: Daniel from Germany, and James from Northern Ireland. The eleven of us and Karlyn made a group dinner and drank a few beers/wine together that night as well.  I made the mistake of getting a girly beer.  It was called Steinlager which translates to stone lager in German so I figured I was being manly.  Damn you universe, why do you hate me! At least the slim green can matched my thong, so that raised my spirits.

Daniel and another German, Tomas, went on a journey with me to catch the sunrise the next morning at 6 am, but we had no such luck.  I can't complain too much though, the view was still amazing.

Waiting on the sunrise

I think everyone knows how fond of worms I am, especially since I have a symbiotic relationship with several of them in my lower intestines and earwax tunnels.  After leaving Raglan, we hit up some caves that held glow worms, which are actually just glowing maggot eggs, but for touristy reasons, glow worm sounds better.  They were actually really cool and emanated a spectacular blue light.  We hopped on a raft to drift beneath them and marveled at how the cave ceiling looked like night sky. Then we hiked up to a second cave for good measure and to get our money's worth, as New Zealand consumes your money faster than Lindsay Lohan's nose consumes cocaine.

Glow worm cave entrance

I'm nowhere near skilled enough to take pictures in a pitch-black cave, but luckily the tour company gave us some!

These are the worms in my stomach, just for comparison

You raft beneath the ceilings in complete darkness

They look like blue stars burning in the night sky

That night we ended up going to a cultural Maori house in a town called Rotorua, which was pretty sketchy. We were told it was going to be a big feast but the last few of us only got chicken legs and scraps, frozen pees, and some roast veggies.  The cultural show consisted of two people, whose eyes were glazed liked donuts from what I can only assume was an absurd amount of weed, playing guitar and singing a few tunes.  We also had a dance off, with the men doing the Maori Haka and the women doing some weird ass shit with some half pompom looking thing.  Team man won, thanks to our intensity and ridiculous Maori death glare poses. I would upload a photo, but a single glance would cause your heart to explode.

We also had a 2 hour debate on whether or not to try and make a trip to Hobbiton, which wasn't on the Stray travel path, but eventually decided against it since it was too much hassle.  If it was Hogwarts, I would have just taken a portkey there (Nerd Alert!).  To add to the lackluster dinner and performance, the showers were also freezing.  My nipples became so hard that they tore through my towel as I attempted to dry off.  As we left, I was also relieved of my duty as the people counter, since I neglected my duties and we almost left someone behind... Sorry Vanessa!  You should never assume an Asian is good at counting and/or math. A mistake that caused the three dudes sitting behind me in Calculus to flunk out. 

After leaving that place, we went white water rafting, which was amazing!  The river we rafted has the second largest waterfall drop that you can take in the world.  I was so stoked to be able to GoPro my white water rafting experience, because I want to capture as much ridiculous videographic evidence of my idiocy as possible, but unfortunately the battery crapped out on me.  I was really bummed at the time, but once we started going I was having too much fun to care.  Besides, it also means I have a great excuse to go rafting again! #Don'tWorryBeHappy

Time to fall

Completely submerged

And then I flew into the river....

I'm 99% sure our rafting guide was trying to flip the boat, he kept talking how he hadn't flipped in a week and it was annoying him.  So we took it at a rough angle and the two of us in front flew out into the river.  The entire rafting trip only lasted 45 minutes and about 30 of that was practice or waiting for another raft to pass through, so really there was like 15 mins of rafting involved.  Dropping off that waterfall was pretty awesome though, so I'd still say it was worth $90.  After rafting we checked out a few places before making our way towards the next destination, Taupo.  

Just standard scenery, this is nothing special in New Zealand.  This stream led into a hot spring

Mud springs of Waiotapu!  This place smelled terrible and there were giant sledge balls firing off in all directions.  In other words, it was exactly like my toilet after eating Taco Bell.  

Amazing blue waters of the noble Waikato, the longest river in New Zealand

So many shades of blue, the water was almost as pretty as the girls on the bus :). Awwww, I so charming

Once we got to Taupo, all the girls went sky diving except for Sophie, who had already gone white water rafting with the boys in the morning.  Thus we did some more sight-seeing that afternoon while they were being total badasses.  Photo overload:

So many ducks

Alfred Hitchcock warned me about this!

Daniel and James trying to make the cover of Stray magazine

Lake Taupo

It's so much fun watching someone plunge

Going solo on this trip has been one if the best experiences of my life.  I've seen so many beautiful places, enjoyed adrenaline-fueled adventures, made a lot of new memories, and more importantly, new friends to share them with.  I was a little nervous about doing it alone, but you'll never know what's on the other side of the mountain by staring at it through the looking glass, so why wait in wonder when you can climb it and see what's there for yourself?  I can honestly say I've never felt more alive, so ready to conquer all of my fears.  This world is amazing, full of so many opportunities, and luckily I'm still at the point where I haven't learned that I'm not invincible.  That theory would soon be tested as I hiked a mountain in a snowstorm, but that my friends is a story for another blog.

Group Photos

It's so cold, but I have my stray crew to keep me warm! James, Cara, Sophie, Tomas, Kerri, Vanessa, Daniel, Ella, Susan, Sarah, Seantonio

Giant Kiwi

JUMP!

Random GoPro photos

So amazing

Not a bad view...