Goodbye Aotearoa

Well, the time has come for Laura and I to go back to the land of the silver birch…

The past few days have been jam packed, and it’s been a great way to finish off our month of fun, friends, and adventure.  On Friday morning, we left New Plymouth bright and early for an “unknown” adventure.  We ended up in Waitomo and spent the afternoon caving. 

After donning our wetsuits, helmets, headlamps, and gumboots amidst a flurry of giggles, we set off for the cave.  The first “test” was climbing down a ladder into the cave.  The opening that we had to climb down was barely wide enough to squeeze through, and you could not see the bottom.  After passing the claustrophobia test, we spent the next two and a half hours walking, swimming, climbing, crawling, falling, squeezing, pulling, and pushing our way through the cave.  It was grueling at times, but it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.  Highlights included jumping off a cliff backwards with an inner tube held to our rear ends, floating on the tube down a pitch black corridor while “star gazing” at glow worms and singing (very badly) to random songs which echoed back to us, and being “reborn” while climbing through a very narrow tunnel in the pitch dark and then sliding down the mud through the opening at the end.

View from hotel of Lake Rotorua

We arrived in Rotorua just in time to quickly change and run to the opening of the conference.  Nathalie, Laura, and I later left the conference for the hotel where we ordered pizza and worked on our final presentation until the wee hours of the morning.  Then it was up again bright and early for the conference sessions on Saturday.  It was really great to see so many people who we had met along the way meet up again in one big room.  Immediately after the conference ended, we headed off to spend the afternoon doing a “canopy tour”.

The canopy tour was three hours long in total and included zip lining above the trees from platform to platform as well as walking along swinging bridges without handrails.  The highest platform was 22 metres in the air.  It was an absolutely amazing to see the virgin forest from that vantage point and to hear the birds singing around us as we sailed through the air.

 

 

Then, it was back to the hotel again for another Superman-like transformation into our evening costume for the formal dinner and dance.  The theme was “Starry starry night and everyone was to dress up according to the theme.  There were some amazing costumes including the cast from Star Wars, rock stars, the Beatles, a starry knight, and a team dressed up as the Van Gogh painting.  We went as Canadian princesses since we have been treated as such for the past four weeks and it was all we could afford at the $2 store!  The room was decorated beautifully, the food was great, and we had a lot of fun dancing until the music stopped.

 

 

Then, it was up bright and early again to head back to the conference and give our final presentation. (I plan on posting a copy of our final presentation here when I get back, so keep checking for that).

Immediately after the conference, our team was finally split up as Mary headed off with her husband, Terry, to tour the south island, Laura and Nathalie headed off to Auckland where Laura will join me to fly home today.  Nathalie will stay for another week touring north of Auckland, and I headed back to Wellington with John and Rachel from the Harbour City Rotary Club for another vocational at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, which is where Amanda from the team who came to New Zealand works.  On the way to Auckland, Nathalie was able to fulfill her lifelong dream of zorbing, and on the way to Wellington, I was able to see some amazing geothermic activity, which was something that I had wanted to do while here.

Nathalie is sloshing around in this ball as it bounces down the hill.

 

Although we are looking forward to seeing our families again, we are all very sad to be leaving this great country of New Zealand and all the wonderful people we have met along the way. 

We cannot appropriately express our gratitude for such a wonderful opportunity and unique experience.  The hospitality and generosity we have encountered cannot be outdone. 

Kia Ora.