Living a Fairytale

This past weekend I went back in Rotorua. During the eight-hour bus ride I found myself wondering why I was going back to Little Rotti when there were so many other places that still needed to be explored. Pulling up to Rotti I started smelling the rotten eggs scent of sulfur and oddly enough felt somewhat comforted by the familiarity.

As I said in my earlier post, the first night we checked into Cactus Jack’s and headed towards the Night Market. Day two Taylor and I set out for Blue Lake. She had gone during our first week in Rotorua and said it was really beautiful so I wanted to see this place for myself. After a bus ride and a lift from a friendly local we found ourselves hoofin’ it around the gorgeous Blue Lake to our own, almost-private beach. We befriended a little duck, ‘Milly’ and drooled over some little kids with cute little accents (little kid New Zealand accents are the best).

After baking our bods for a bit, eating some pineapple lumps and fruit, we started back and met a cute family on holiday from Hamilton (about an hour from Rotorua) who owned a blueberry orchard, “Blueberry Country”. After chatting with them we promised to visit and parted ways. The gang of eight of us that made the trip cooked a family dinner of pasta and pizza and cookies and chocolate (mmmmm!! Nomnomnom) and headed to bed early in preparation of a busy next day.

Saturday, six of us headed to sledging, a sort of boogie board-like adventure on a river. The guide told us that the normal speed of the river was 15 meters per second, but that day, due to all the rain, it was 25… the highest it could be if we wanted to sledge, (oh boy, near panic attack). Anyway, fear aside, we plunged our wet-suit ridden bodies into the river right at the base of a beautiful waterfall, simply gorgeous. The first rapid we headed down, my sledge was ripped from my hands and I swallowed about 29 gallons of water through my nose/mouth, awesome, ay? (sorry Mom, cover your ears!) Seriously, the guides gave us two rules, don’t let go of your sledge, and turn your head to the side when heading into a wave so as to avoid breaking your nose… welp, I messed that one up! Accident averted, I re-muckled myself onto my board and continued on, trying not to seem like a wimp. I got the hang of it though, and like all things adrenal fueled, I really loved it. I’ll attach a video at the bottom.

After dragging my sore, beaten body out of the water we headed back to go zorbing. BEST THING OF MY LIFE!!!!! Paired up, we bounded down a long grassy hill in giant, water-filled hamster balls. Talk about dream job!

Sunday, we said ‘so long’ to CJ’s and deemed ourselves nomads for a few hours whilst waiting for the bus back to Welly. Once again an eight-hour bus ride loomed over me. Thankfully it came and went and was made much more enjoyable by the incredibly awesome views. The New Zealand country side is made up of green, rolling hills, mountainous formations, unique flora and fauna, speckled with sheep, cows and the occasional deer.

As a great weekend came to an end, Monday started off quite terribly. I left my flat and got the mail on my way to class this morning only to receive a letter from the post office. Apparently the package that was sent from home almost three weeks ago was randomly searched in customs and is now being held in Auckland… yeah I know bugger, right? As if that’s not bad enough… they want me to pay $200 to get it… um, what? Yeah, that’s right TWO-HUNDRED DOLLARS!@#$%^&*(. Excuse me, but I already bought that, I don’t want to pay for it again. Thanks, but no thanks! So all during my classes today I was just telling myself, “well I mean I guess I’ll just leave it there and never see that stuff again”. But then I realized, all my riding stuff is in there, good clothes, and my camera charger, plus maybe, just maybe my mom stuck some goodies in it?! So now I’m really down about this whole ordeal.

Anyway, it’s really hard to be anything but happy here. My friend Rouven bought a car over the weekend, so he toted myself, Taylor, Cramer, and Dillon to this private beach with nearly-black sand and huge, unbelievably gorgeous rock formations. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, top five definitely (the other four are also in New Zealand, this place is unreal). I was kicking myself the whole time for not bringing my camera, like what kind of photographer am I?! BAD. Anywho, I just took millions of mental pictures instead. We climbed huge rocks, frolicked, and oh yeah, hung out with a seal, yeah I know.. caaarazyyy! And then stumbled upon this cute little penguin, double crazzyyy.
It’s times likes these that I can’t help but appreciate and love the life I lead. I’m living a dream, if only for a short while.