Been a while...

So it has been a few days since my last post so there is a lot to catch up on. I followed my day in Raglan with arguably my best day yet, although every day is pretty amazing. We traveled to the Waitomo Caves just south of Raglan. The caves are known to have some of the best spelunking in the world. A group of myself and nine others found a company that would take us abseiling, or what I call repelling, down a cave system that was located in the middle of nowhere on a farm that was filled with cows and goats. After a quick tutorial on how to properly abseil down the cave walls we set off into the caverns. As soon as we got into the cave we hooked in to our harness and swung out onto a cave ledge about fifty feet up (just an estimate since everything is in meters and I have no idea how many feet are in a meter). We spent most of the day fitting through tunnels just big enough to pass your shoulders through and repelling down water falls and crawling on our bellies through underground streams for almost four hours. At times members of my group would become quite claustrophobic as we would be packed into small areas getting drenched by waterfalls very frequently, but for the most part everyone had a great time in the caves. After almost four hours we finally saw daylight after rock climbing our way back out of the tunnels, which turned out to be much more challenging than getting down. If that was not enough for one day, we immediately got back on the bus and traveled a few hours into the middle of nowhere New Zealand and unloaded at a traditional Maori long house, or place of ritual. By the way, I have not mentioned yet that while driving around New Zealand all you see are sheep for miles and miles. Anyways, back to the Maori. The Maori are the native peoples of New Zealand and were here long before any European settlers. In recent years there has been an attempt to preserve Maori culture, so the language and customs are taught to all school children in New Zealand. The structure that we arrived at was a traditional place of ritual for the Maori and is still used by the Maori of the area as a spiritual gathering place. After eating a traditional Maori meal of fish and the New Zealand version of sweet potatoes, we watched the Maori people perform traditional songs and dances for us. After this excellent performance the group was told that we would be split up in to two groups, male and female, and both learn traditional Maori dances. We (the men) were forced to strip down to our underwear and put on traditional Maori dresses and learn the Haka. The Haka is the war dance performed by Maori men to intimidate other tribes on the battle field. Some people might know it because the New Zealand soccer and rugby teams perform it before their games. It is very intense and serious and they made sure that we had it memorized before they allowed us to perform in front of their people. It was actually so intense that I got bruises on my legs and scratches on my chest from the different dance moves. We actually performed so well that the Maori men were impressed, although they probably say that to everyone who pays them to stay there. Overall, the entire day was extremely exciting and  definitely my best day so far. The following morning we departed our spot in the middle of nowhere and traveled to Taupo, which is a relatively large city located on Lake Taupo in the middle of the North Island. We spent the day at a river outside of town that had hot springs flowing into it, making it a natural hot tub while others I was with went skydiving. I passed on the skydiving to save some money. Yesterday (Saturday in New Zealand, Friday in the States) we traveled to Tongariro National Park which was absolutely stunning. I spent the day hiking a trail that many guides call one of the best hikes in the entire world. The area is actually a system of erupted volcanoes and soon to be erupted volcanoes, the last one erupting only thirty years ago. The hike was only 20 kilometers long, but it was a very difficult vertical hike on the way to the summit of the highest crater. Not to mention the weather was miserable, rainy and windy the entire way up. Once we got to the summit though the weather immediately cleared up and turned into a beautiful summer day in New Zealand, about 75 degrees. We were finally able to see the terrain around us and see the area that was used in many of the Lord of the Rings movies. Peter Jackson, the director, is from New Zealand so most of the scenes were filmed here, with this certain park used for many different shots. I will be sure to put up some of my photos from the hike because it was pretty incredible terrain. After the weather cleared the hike down was a piece of cake. All together, the hike took around six hours to complete. Currently I am in the capital city of New Zealand, Wellington, and will only be staying here one night. Tomorrow morning I take the ferry to the South Island, which is supposed to be amazing. Currently there is some huge rugby tournament here so the streets are packed with people. Rugby is extremely popular in New Zealand. Anyways, it is around dinner time so I have to go get on that but check back for my next experience and I promise that as soon as a I have a free day, which I have not had yet, I will upload my photos. Until next time.