Expectation: (noun) an expectant mental attitude

I'm on a bit of a definition kick, aren't I? Hope you don't mind...but I like it. Without further delay -- Rotorua!

I like my sleep. Too much. I have gotten into the bad habit of snoozing the alarm on my phone. Sometimes, I turn it off because I get annoyed with it. Such was the case on the morning of 9 July.

My plan was to catch the bus to the airport at 7:11 am or so. My plane left from Wellington to Rotorua at about 8:30 am, but security for domestic flights in New Zealand is essentially non-existent, and so arriving obnoxiously early to the airport is not a necessity. All was well. Until I woke up at 7:05.

Thankfully, I had laid out my clothes the night before. Thankfully, everything was ready to go (except Norbert…he was MIA). And thankfully, another bus to the airport came to my stop at 7:26.

I knew the second I walked out the door that it was going to be a rough flight. Wind. So much wind. As the plane taxied out onto the runway, it had to wait for another plane to land. Even just sitting on the ground, the plane was being buffeted by winds, rocking madly. I trembled for the entire duration of the flight, which was thankfully only about an hour long. And, of course, I would be sitting by the emergency exit seat. All I was thinking was about how I would react to having to help the flight assistant should the plane return to the ground prematurely. It wasn’t the worst flight I’ve been on turbulence wise, but it was also far from the best.

The weather in Wellington was absolutely opposite from the weather I encountered when I stepped off the plane in Rotorua. Sunshine greeted me and I was happy to be back on solid ground. I met up with Kendall, Amanda, Adam, and Wes at our hostel (they had all left the previous day), dropped off my bags, and then we headed out and about! They signed up for a day at a mud spa thing, which I passed on (didn’t really want to pay to play in mud). But we had the whole morning before us! Kendall and I got coffee at Starbucks (normally, I avoid Starbucks and venture to locally owned coffee establishments). In celebration of the new Twilight movie out there (Eclipse, I think…I don’t really keep them straight or care for them all that much), that particular Starbucks had three drinks in honour of the different characters. I tend to side with team Jacob, and so I got a Hot Jacob (chocolate and mint). Lovely drink!

We walked to the lake, watched some birds swim around, played on a playground for about a nanosecond, went into a few gift shops, sorted out our rental car for the next day, and then they left for their mud time. I, on the other hand, was quite excited to have some time to myself to wander. And wander I did!

Most of my afternoon was spent in the Government Gardens. It was free to get into and I got to see plenty of the geothermal activity that has led to Rotorua registering on the tourist radar. Bubbling vats of mud and smelly water. Check.

Given that introduction to the experience, I really greatly enjoyed my stroll. I think at one point I wandered too far and trespassed into a homeless man’s nest (not really a home if he’s homeless, plus it was tucked away in a patch of scrub brush), but it was all a part of the adventure. He wasn’t there, but his rubbish was.

Anyways, I found a trail that wound along the lake front and past more vats of bubbling mud. As childish as it may sound, my imagination sometimes does run away with me. I fancied myself a young Maori woman, taking a walk away from the village. I can imagine that it did happen, that at some point in time a young Maori woman did indeed venture along the same water front that I did. Perhaps she was seeking solitude to sort out her thoughts, like I was. It helps that the vegetation in New Zealand makes me think that I have travelled through time to some point in early history.

I sat and wrote in my journal for a while. It was at this point that I realized something very important that I do not think I have fully mentioned yet in this blog: I had not been expecting much from this trip to New Zealand. I knew that it would be a nice trip, that I would see some fantastic things, but the novelty of international travel had grown dim. I have lived abroad before and I guess that I wasn’t expecting to learn anything new. As I sat on that bench in the scrubby foliage, looking out at a cloudy lake, I decided to start expecting. Growth. Knowledge. Wisdom. Direction. Expectation.

That walk around the lake took me a few hours, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was so nice just to be outside, not in a rush, thinking, processing, observing. When I got done, it was just about the right time for me to go and pick up our rental car for the next day. Now, in New Zealand they drive on the left side of the road. I was so nervous, but as it turns it the adjustment was not a difficult one to make. I have only ever driven a non-American made car a handful of times, and this was one of them. I parked the little blue Toyota in a free parking zone, and would later move it out in front of the hostel once free parking opened up there after five pm.

Feeling very relaxed, I decided to head back to the hostel for a nap until my travel companions returned from their mud bath. Before I knew it, there they were in all of their sulphur-soaked splendour. They got cleaned up, and shortly after their return we headed out to a traditional Maori dinner experience thing.

We got picked up in a shuttle by an older Maori gentleman. At this point, I met Claudia, who was staying at the same hostel as we were and was picked up for the same event with us. She is from out side of Munich in Germany, but had been working in Australia for about nine months. As a wrap up to her time abroad, she was spending a month travelling New Zealand. We sat together at dinner. Before the meal (called a hangai, I believe), we were taught a brief song in Maori that I wish I could remember, and shepherded out to the river where the warriors would arrive. By that time, it was dark out, and we stood in cold anticipation by the banks of the water. From around a bend, an orange glow grew in intensity, and a boatful of Maori men dressed as warriors emerged. They unloaded, and we followed them to observe and learn about some of their traditional music and instruments, agility training, and ultimately, a haka.

The food was delicious – cooked in the ground and everything! Potatoes, chicken, lamb, sweet potatoes – a regular smorgasbord comparable to Thanksgiving dinner. Afterwards, Wes, Claudia, and I were taken on a tour to see some of the Rainbow Springs at night. The water was crystal clear, which belied their depth. Little glow worms were aglow in them, and rainbow trout (introduced to the area, of course) lazed about in the icy waters. The highlight of the evening was being taken into an enclosure and encountering some real, live Kiwi birds. I was expecting them to be about the size of a tennis ball, but they were probably cat sized. The way they moved was amusing. Perhaps the best way I can describe it is to have you imagine a burglar with his loot hunched over and trying to walk through fallen leaves without making a sound (picking up his feet high and delicately). Awful analogy. Oh well!

In the morning, we set out in our rental car towards Waitomo Caves for an adventure that I still didn’t quite understand. I had been told about it all on Friday, and all I knew was that we were going to be wearing wet suits and that we would be in a cave at some point. I was eager to test my driving skills, and so nominated myself as driver. Nobody contested my decision, and so after a few anxious kilometers of figuring out which way I was going, our journey was underway. Let me tell you, I adored that morning! At first, the fog and winding roads were intimidating. I was nervous with all that I had heard about slick roads on our previous trip to Milford Sound, about how the roads tend to ice over at night. But seeing the sun rise over the rolling countryside was magic. Even though everybody complained that there was nothing to see, I was in heaven! Just thinking back on it makes me happy. I just love the feeling of a fresh new day, especially one full of adventure and the unknown.

It took us a few hours to drive out to our destination: a business dubbed “Rap, Raft, and Rock.” We signed our lives away then headed out with Mike, our guide for the day who smelled of cigarettes and looked somewhat like a drug addict. Not a creepy, under the bridge drug addict. More of a rock and roll drug addict. We stopped off to get changed into our wet suits, the smell of which still haunts me. Imagine wet fabric, combined with the body odor of hundreds of different people. It was special. But something about being in an outfit that was skin tight just made me feel like prancing around. Sometimes, you just have to dance.

Back in the van we went, in our gumboots (rain boots), helmets, harnesses, and wet suits. Mike drove us down back roads and through sheep paddocks. We ended up in the middle of nowhere, no cave in sight. He led us to a fence where we could practice our abseiling with ropes tied to the fence posts. It was at this point that I started to get a little nervous. Abseiling is essentially the act of lowering one’s self down by letting the supporting rope slip through one’s hands. Butterflies!

After a few practice rounds, we were off, down stairs built into the hillside, and on to a little platform.

Recall what I wrote earlier about my new-found expectation for growth. That day presented me with one of my defining moments on this trip. But first, I need to digress and provide some background.

I don’t consider myself to be a brave person. Not a thrill seeker. But it is for this reason that I greatly admire my good friend Emily. She is so fiery, so adventurous. And I, being so calm, have desired to find that fiery side of myself. I have sought bravery, courage, resilience. The first time I can remember it surfacing in myself, that spark and fire deep within, was in Nicaragua last summer. We were taken to a stunning beach on the Pacific with the intention of letting the group of us experiment with surfing. Everything started out well enough – the real surfers were awesome in teaching us what to do. But everything changed when I ended up on a short board, rather than the long boards everybody else was using. As I learned later, short boards are much more difficult for beginners to use. For most of the afternoon, I was struggling to even catch a wave to ride it into shore, let alone stand up. Greatly discouraged, I considered just giving up and sitting on the beach. I stood waist deep in the ocean and glared angrily at the waves that were rolling in, and resolved to not let the ocean get the better of me. It was a small moment of triumph, but a grand one at the same time. I only caught one wave that day, and was so surprised that I didn’t even stand up, but that sense of victory was awesome, and that discovery of resolve even more so.

Now, back to abseiling, I ended up being the first one to go down. I didn’t really want to be, but that was just how it worked out. Mike strapped me in, calling me forward as “Sarah, the brave one.” That phrase will echo in my mind for a long time. He gave me brief instruction on how to swing out over the gorge we were going down into, and I didn’t hesitate. “Wow! Going right into it!” he exclaimed as I swung out.

At that moment, I learned what 88 feet high looked like. But there was nothing for it – I lowered myself down slowly. Nothing went wrong, of course. At the bottom, I found myself in awe of how beautiful and green that part of the cave was. Cool waters rushed past me, and in my solitude at the bottom of the hole I admired my surroundings. Soon enough, everybody else was down with me, we had collected our inner tubes and removed our harnesses, and began walking upstream into the cave.

We quickly learned that our gumboots all had holes in their soles. Why that was, I don’t know. I think that mine may have also been a bit small. No matter. There is something spooky about being underground, thinking about the tons of earth resting just above one’s head. As if that wasn’t enough, one of the key elements of caving is to crawl through holes in the rocks. I didn’t know whether or not I was claustrophobic, but I decided to go for it. It wasn’t bad. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, and not something I relished doing. More than once, I thought for sure that I was stuck. But I made it. Poor Adam was assigned by Mike to help me out as the exit way was about a meter off the surface of the water. I felt like I mauled him in my desperation to free myself from the rock. Sorry Adam.

We encountered some wildlife in the caves. And by wildlife I mean two eels and glow worms. Now glow worms are funny things. They don’t poop. The glow we saw was essentially burning feces. Who knew poop could be so lovely? It was like looking at a night sky when we turned out our headlamps.

We black water rafted (basically, tubing in the dark) for a while, taking us past the opening where we started and then down stream further into the cave. There were two more opportunities to crawl through holes in rock. I passed on one, but did the last one. We admired some more glowing poop, enjoyed some chocolate and some kind of hot drink that tasted an awful lot like heated up Gatorade, and then made our way back out of the cave.

Getting out of the cave was another moment that presented an opportunity for me to push through as the only method to leave was to rock climb. I had never done it before, and was excited to give it a go. It’s harder than it looks. At one spot, I had no idea how to keep going. I realized there how much of a quitters attitude I have, because if I would have had my choice I would have called it good. To spite that, I didn’t entertain the thought any further, and of course made it out just fine.

Our drive back was uneventful, but still pleasant. We tried an alternate route back to Rotorua, and found our way just fine. That night we met back up with Claudia for drinks, and exchanged stories about our days. I really liked her! Next time I’m in Germany… ;)

Sunday was departure day. Kendall and I made breakfast (brekkie, if you’re a Kiwi) for everybody. Somehow, I always manage getting on different travel accommodations that everybody else. My bus to Wellington left a few hours before theirs did. However, it did give me the opportunity to journal some more and have some nice time with my thoughts. The bus went past the mountain that Peter Jackson based Mt. Doom off of in Lord of the Rings. Too bad Frodo didn’t know about the Intercity buses.

For a lot of reasons, Rotorua was one of my favorite weekend trips. Our group dynamics were excellent, there was a nice balance of peaceful reflection and adventure. Very nice indeed!

And so concludes the last post about my out-of-Wellington excursions. But not to worry. My weekends in Wellington have been most enjoyable as well! More on that soon!

PS - Unfortunately, no pictures! I have them, but am having some internet difficulties! So, those will have to go up once I get back in the States.