It Was Worth the Thousands of Dollars

The first day we spent some time at the park and had some great fish and chips- so fattening though. I really honestly love everyone in the group and it is not as bad as I thought waiting for people to get all organized. Groups take time, which is annoying, but it’s all better when you’re enjoying the people and beauty around you. That's what it’s all about, isn't it? I have all the details written in my journal to report later, but here are some of the other highlights.

I went black-water rafting yesterday morning! That was the coolest caving EVER! There were 13 of my best friends in the group, so it made it even more fun! We trekked up to get to the cave entrance and then threw our tubes in. We connected tubes by linking legs. For parts of it, we had to do the cave limbo where we literally pulled ourselves through the tiny cracks by hanging onto the ceiling. It was just awesome! We went backwards sometimes and over a few waterfalls. It was fun to turn our headlamps off and see the glowworms on the ceiling. Although, I think they are talked up quite a bit. They just look like green sparkles :) Even the guide says they are to attract tourists, the caves are what were really cool.

Eating on the trip is going well. I’m sometimes hungry, but there is just different food here and we’re still trying to figure out how much to buy to accommodate for the 34 of us. It all works out though, I’m not dead!

Last night was probably the highlight so far. The group was going on a hike (one of the top ten in NZ) so it was a hard decision to make. I ended up going with Cam who was organizing a trip to the beach. He really wanted to go but needed more people to make it worth the hour drive each way. So I thought I was doing him a favor, but boy was I WRONG! It was the most magical, best experience ever. The beach (with warning of "freak waves" ) (oh and I’m getting lots of great pics! :) :) :)) was completely abandoned and we got there at about 5:30 so the sun set while we were there.

The sun sets about 9 here and its REAALLY fun to watch a completely new set of stars :) Regardless, we had to cross some really strong currents to get to a different kind of shore. Oh, and when we got there we found out it was BLACK SAND! SOOOO Cool and great pics :) It was seriously just the best. If we don’t do anything else great for the next 4 months, that experience was worth the thousands of dollars that it took to get me here.