Waitomo Expedition

Wow. Another week down and I'm not even sure how to begin to describe the experience I have had. It was awful and amazing and exhilarating and scary and exhausting. That pretty much sums it up.

I will try my best to lead you all through what I have done this week. I am sorry these posts are so long... writing about these experiences is kind of like a mind dump for me, since I have been holding all these thoughts in for a whole week! I apologize for those who would rather have the Reader's Digest version... you will have to skim!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures at the moment, but hopefully I will be able to get back and post some before I leave on my next expedition. I wasn't able to take a ton of pictures, but our program leader, Scott, took some really great ones.

First of all, we had a fun free day in Auckland, which included baking cookies in the hostel kitchen, watching fireworks in the harbour, and singing our hearts out at a kareoke bar. We all recharged and refueled and reconnected before heading out for our first major expedition...

Day 1 - Sunday

We got up at the crack of dawn and left Auckland to drive to Waitomo, where our adventure program was based. Our expedition was through an organization called Absolute Adventure, and they provided a lot of the gear and all of our food and shelter. When we got there, we launched right into the adventure. We met our guide, Doug, who traveled with us the whole week and turned out to be one of the less stellar parts of the trip. We got all geared up for our first activity - caving. We all had to pick out rubber boots, layers of long underwear, a big heavy wetsuit, and a helmet. We all looked pretty ridiculous, since the long underwear all happened to be rainbow striped and have random holes in all sorts of places. We had to carry all this gear for about an hour, hiking up and down all these hills, to the top of a 280 foot sheer cliff. It feels so weird to remember back to that afternoon, feeling like that was the hardest hike. Boy... I had no idea what lay ahead.

We abseiled (rappelled) down the 280-foot cliff, which was not as scary as I thought, but not as fun either. It was pretty cool to spin around and see all these mountains in the distance and the ground SO far below, but I wasn't very good at making myself drop down in a fluid motion, so it was sort of a bumpy ride. I thought I would be a lot more scared, but my harness felt so secure (and I was wearing so much gear), that I actually felt pretty comfortable. At the bottom we hiked for about another hour, through much more interesting terrain. It really felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie (only we looked super silly in big rubber boots, wet suits, and helmets..) We got to this little waterfall and got to put our faces in and drink straight out of the fall, and it was like the most refreshing drink I have ever had. Then we had to climb along all these little ridges holding onto ropes and climbing up twisty rope ladders, until we had one more tiny abseil, just about 20 feet or so, which landed us in the mouth of the cave.

The cave was pretty amazing, and one of my favorite parts of the week. It was an entirely new environment for me... no light, barely any heat, just slimy rocks and freezing water. The very first challenge in the cave was to squeeze through a tiny space between these huge rocks. Then we mostly were climbing between and over rocks for the rest of the way. We had to be really careful not to touch any of the formations with our hands, because the oils would stop the formation of the stalagmites and stalactites. They ranged in size from tinier than my pinky to larger than my whole body. The scariest part was the water. Sometimes we had to walk right through really deep water, even up to our waists. In one place, we had to get completely in the water and push backward through a tiny opening where only our mouth stayed above the water (I have a great picture of this that I will try to post when Scott gets his pictures online). In another place, we had to completely go underwater again to get through another tiny whole. Doug, our guide, would reach his hand through the hole and we would just grab on and duck underwater. Being under the water in the cave was like having a huge icy hand wrap around my lungs and squeeze. When I came out of the water after totally having my head under, I just had this icy feeling shooting through my whole body - I don't even know how to describe it. But then you start moving and breathing and you feel fine. Lucky for us that we had really good wetsuits!

A few times we all turned our lights off to look at the glow worms on the ceiling, which was really cool. Sometimes I had to remind myself to take a second and pause (from trying not to lose my balance and fall into the freezing water) and just look around at the cave. The best part was when we saw the exit, for two reasons. At that point the caving had gone on a little too long, and we were all a little too cold, and just glad to see the way out. But really, it was the most beautiful sight. The opening was above us and light was just streaming through the leaves above into this pitch dark cave in these perfect shafts of light. (Again, another good picture will be coming here).

When we got back to camp, we packed up our gear for the rest of the week and set out on our true expedition. I was "leader" for the rest of the day, and had to organize the packing of the food and navigate us to our campsite. For those of you who have ever been in a car with me, you know that directions are not my forte. The guide was a little rough on me and wouldn't really give me and help or advice, which was frustrating. The compass would point one way, but the path would go the other. We had already had a very long day and were sick of tramping through the bush. It was the best feeling when we hit the stream we had been looking for and finally found our campsite, at about 8pm. We made dinner and set up our tarps and fell asleep pretty quickly. It was sort of a discouraging day by the end, because none of us had really expected it to be so difficult.

Day 2 - Monday

This was the day we were all dreading. We had been told we would be hiking about 9 hours through untracked forest. Understatement of the year. "Untracked forest" in New Zealand is also known as "the bush," which means treacherous roots and trees and rocks and the deadly supple jack. Supple jack is basically these huge long vines which loop all around trees and across all the open spaces and tangle all around eachother. They are the ultimate enemy for a hiker with a huge backpack. We spent the entire day negiotiating ourselves through tangles and tiny openings between all of the plant life, up and down huge hills, through muddy streams... it just never ended. At this point I started to wonder if my feet would ever be dry again or if my legs would ever been clean (answer: no). When we finally made our way our of the bush, we ended up walking through deforested land, which was almost as bad. It was covered in nettles and went up and down over hills in the blazing sun (no tree cover). My legs were just completely crisscrossed in huge scratches. We walked right through some cow pastures (Doug threw my pack in some cow poop when I was climbing over the electric fence, which made for a smelly afternoon) and finally made it to some track which led us to another abseil. We abseiled down a small overhang right by a waterfall which lead us right to our next campsite. I got to have somewhat of a wash in the water... but no soap or anything. It was mostly just splash splash and then change quickly under a towel. Still, I felt so clean compared to earlier in the day!

Day 3 - Tuesday

Today we got up and set out for another morning of bush crashing. It was pretty much the same deal as the day before for the first 4 hours of the day. But somehow I felt a little less awful. I knew I had made it through the day before, and I tried to put as much positive energy into my body as possible to combat the sore, aching feet and tired body. The highlight was making it to this amazing waterfall, which was falling straight down, crashing into this pool of water. We got to climb up onto a rock right behind it and feel the spray, which was so refreshing. We finally made it to the "gorging" section of our trip, which meant climbing down to the river bed, which ran through these huge boulders and sections of rocks. We had to scramble our way over and through all of these reall tricky sections. I loved loved loved this part of the trip. I got really sick of the monotonous hiking, but gorging was like a constant challenge that forced my mind and my body to constantly work together. We had to plan out every foothold and help eachother push up over rocks. At one point we even had to take off our packs and push them through a tiny whole in the rock and then squeeze our bodies through! At one point I fell with both of my legs smashed down in between two huge boulders, which was pretty scary before I realized I wasn't hurt at all, just stuck.

I wish the day had ended there, on such a positive note, but after we left the gorge, we had to walk for another 2 hours through farmland, which again meant hot sun, TONS of nettles, and really rough, hilly terrain. The soles of my feet literally felt like falling off, and when we hit this huge uphill path, I really almost had to give up. I just kept thinking, "My body cannot possible take one more step," but somehow, my body kept taking steps. It was such a relief when we finally made camp that night. We also knew that it was our last day carrying our packs since we would be on the river for the next two days.

Day 4 - Wednesday

This day was by far the most fun day - we tubed down the Tawerau River. The worst part was getting all of our gear dropped off 3 km (about an hour's walk) from the river and having to walk carrying these huge black inner tubes, our wet suits, and a gazillion layers of clothes to protect us from the cold water. We also had to eat so much food because our bodies needed the extra calories for the long day on the river. (Side note: In New Zealand, the nutrition labels all refer to calories as "Energy" and measure in kilojoules. So next time I eat an ice cream cone, I will just think, wow I am getting so much energy from this!) When we got to the river bank, we had to eat some more sandwhiches, and then pull on all our gear. I ended up wearing, from head to toe:

Helmet
Wool hat
Long underwear shirt and pants
Fleece shirt
Full body wet suit
Another fleece shirt
Rain jacket
Life jacket
Wool socks
Hiking boots

In the middle of New Zealand summer.

It was actually pretty funny because they had dropped off the wrong size wetsuit for me, a size too small. With all those clothes on, it was just completely impossible to get the legs over my totally awesome calve muscles, and Doug ended up having to cut slits in the back of the legs to fit me in. Kind of awkward at the time, but funny in retrospect.

Then we plopped down into our tubes and floated down the Tawerau! It was an interesting mix of really lazy patches, where we all just floated along in these big wide sections with very little current, to intense rapids that were full of bumpy rocks. Unfortunately, the river was really low from no rain, which made the rapids a little less comfy. I actually flew out of my tube as I entered one of the rapids, and had to just go down it clinging on to the side of my tube. There was another rapid immediately after, so I just bumped along trying to keep my feet up. Then I fell off AGAIN on the NEXT rapid. Needless to say, I got really wet and had a lot of water up my nose, but luckily didn't get hurt.

Another low point was getting out and hiking through the bush again, this time in wetsuits with TUBES, because the water was too low to make it through the rapids safely. The high point, however, was coming out from the walk onto the edge of a waterfall, at which point we each just jumped off the 15-foot ledge into the rushing water below. It was so thrilling because we had to jump out far to avoid getting pushed right back into the rocks by the current. I was the second to jump and hardly even felt a hesitation! They missed throwing my tube to me though, so there were some scary moments trying to grab onto some rocks until I could get to my tube.

We had to hike a bit at the end of the tube day, but it was a bit of a nicer walk through flatter farm roads. We got to drop all our gear off and get new food for dinner that night. The final part of our day ended with us walking across the river to get to our campsite, where we camped completely under the tree cover, with no tarp above us. I even slept without a tarp under me, just a little bed of ferns. One guy, Dominick, made an awesome lean-to type shelter, but the rest of us were too tired. Still, we had finished the day earlier than most and had time to just relax and hang out and have a tasty meal of nachos.

Day 5 - Thursday

Our final day! We got up and packed up camp for the last time. We didn't have to hike AT ALL, just plopped some canoes in the river (where the Tawerau River meets the Marakopa River) that had been dropped to us and set off! We were two to a canoe and had to negotiate through some small rapids at first, which was pretty fun. I got the hang of navigating the boat pretty quickly. Once we got to the more open section though, it actually got a lot harder. The wind was going against us, and the tide was rising (the Marakopa empties into the sea, so when the tide rises, the water pushes back against the current). Basically it was like paddling upstream for four hours. But it was a nice view with lots of hills and farm animals along side of us. It was also great to be off our feet and exercising some new muscles. When we finally reached the Marakopa beach, where the river meets the Tasman Sea, it was the most amazing feeling. The beach was completely made of black sand, which was a really cool site. We walked down the beach and put our toes in the sea and took some end-of-journey pictures before packing up all the gear, heading back to base camp to help our guide clean up all of the borrowed gear, and then heading to Taupo, where we are spending the weekend. We stopped on the way for burgers at a little bar and man, I have never enjoyed my food so much!

Taupo is a really cute place, although I haven't fully explored it yet. I am going to go parasailing this afternoon and go to some nice hot springs tomorrow evening. Then we set off on a 5-day canoe trip down the Whanganui River.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I can only go so far in describing this past week. Hopefully some pictures will help to convey what it was like. It was definitely a week of extremes. My feet were wet and sore for 5 straight days. I didn't take a single shower and wore the same clothes every single day. I got muddier and dirtier than I had thought possible. I felt more pain over more areas of my body than ever before in my life.

However uncomfortable and tired I was though, I really did learn a lot. I learned how to pee in the woods. I learned how to wash out the dinner pots with sand instead of soap. I learned how to use a compass. I learned things that no one taught me, like wedging my foot above the base of a tree when climbing up a steep hill, or using the length of my arms to get my body through the supple jack. I also learned that my body is a lot stronger than I thought. My arms and legs can reach much further. I learned that the land will eventually catch you when you fall. I learned to trust my body to react to each situation as it came. I learned that, while all uphills must eventually go down, in NZ, all down hills usually will go back up. I learned that even when my mind is saying that it can't go any further, my body can continue working for 5 more hours.

That first hike we took, before the very first abseil, was awful. I was tired and hot and wanted to sit down and rest my feet. By the end of the week, I looked at my sore muscles as a challenge. I knew I could make it through, even though I was tired, since I had done it each day before. I even started to enjoy myself through the exhaustion. I think it was great that this trip happened so early in my adventure, because now, I feel like I can do anything.

I miss you all so much.

xoxo, Katie