Thursday 24 April 2014

Written by Heather Brock and Taylor Boucher

The week started off with knowing that we had only five days left of our typical schedule in Whanganui. This meant the end of our homestays, classes, and internships. Our environmental issues class consisted of guest speakers Richard Thompson, who was involved with the Mackenzie Agreement, Nelson Lebo, who talked about sustainable living, and Graham Pearson, who talked about the different eco projects that he does for a living. In our geology class we presented our geology research projects that we were assigned. Our variety of research topics included greenstone, gold, and coal in New Zealand, Fiordland National Park, marine terraces, geothermal power in the Taupo Region, and volcano monitoring. We did not have any cultures classes scheduled for our last day, but instead we had our last reflection session with our Quaker friends Jillian and David, as well as Mandy and Nigel. In this last session it seemed that mostly everybody was feeling a little eager to go back to the States, but we also concluded that most of these feelings were due to the crappy weather we had been having for a few weeks.

On Friday morning we all met at the Quaker Settlement at 9 AM and prepared for our Easter journey to Waitomo and Rotorua! We drove four long hours through the windy hills of the Whanganui Region until we reached our Waitomo destination. We arrived there in the early afternoon during a rainstorm, and immediately ran inside to the YHA Hostel in which we would be staying at for one night. Right as we arrived we split up into two groups and prepared to spend the next three hours exploring the underground cave system home to glow worms. We had to split up because we had to stay in small groups, and a party of 20 would be hard to handle in the caves. But before we went into the caves with our guides we had to get properly suited up; wearing thick neoprene wetsuits, neoprene booties, rubber boots and a hard hat with a strong waterproof headlamp. Once we were all ready to go we drove to a small river for some practice jumping backwards into the river while sitting in our inner tubes. This short practice would come in handy for preparing us for the high jumps off the underground waterfalls in the cave later on.  

As we began our adventure, we entered a small crevasse into a new magical world. We were all taken aback because none of us has ever seen anything like it before. No words or pictures could fully show the beauty that we saw. As we traveled through the cave, the temperature dropped, but our level of fun rose. We all especially loved looking up into the dark and seeing what looked to be the milky way but brighter from the glow worms. Most of our trip through the cave consisted of walking through a high water level wearing our boots and carrying our tubes, but the other times we hopped on our tube and rode it like there was no tomorrow. We were all sad to see the light at the end of the cave, which meant our adventure was over. That night we gathered in the common area to watch Lord of the Rings with all of our fellow hostel members while we ate breakfast for dinner. We all slept like rocks that night from our long, awesome day, and woke up rejuvenated to travel to Rotorua. 

Saturday we drove a few more hours north to Rotorua where we were staying at the Crash Palace Hostel. This was a more relaxed day and we were able to explore the city and do some shopping. Chris and Meg gave us money for dinner and we all split up to get what we wanted, but somehow most of us ended up eating at the noodle canteen and the rest of us ate at an Indian restaurant. Even Chris, Meg and the kids ate there- we thought that was funny. 

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