Waitangi Day

From Taupo we hopped on the NakedBus and headed back up north to Kerikeri.  After a 12 hour bus ride to Paihia, a half hour south of Kerikeri, we took a taxi that drove us the rest of the journey.  The taxi cost us 60 bucks (note to self: if you've got some extra cash and you're living in new zealand, open a taxi company- you can practically rob people!)  The woman was very friendly, like everyone we've encountered thus far, but she talked our ears off.  Apparently she is an important figure in the Waitangi Day celebrations because of her father- she was Maori and the oldest of 12.. or maybe it was 16.  Moving on.. We arrived in Kerikeri and updated with our friends. Keri Central has been our home away from home.  Brian is storing a suitcase there, everywhere we go, our baggage gets lighter.

The following day, Friday, we headed back south to Paihia. We stayed in a hostel with our friends Fede and Rami.  The first evening in Paihia, Brian and I took our iPods out on an internet search.  We located a free, non-password protected source outside of a real estate agency.  Soon enough, while Brian was using the wifi, the person who was presumably paying for our usage came out of his house an awkwardly talked to Brian about it. The next day, it was passworded! bonk. In this country they pay for internet based on GB usage, once they use up their GB quota, the internet slows down to dial-up speed.

February 6th is the New Zealand national holiday that commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, that essentially made New Zealand a British colony.  This weekend festival is about a half hour south of Kerikeri, right near Paihia.  Saturday morning, around 6 am we watched the sunrise over the bay ('Beautiful', is an understatement).  We saw the largest waka fleet and the largest waka.  Women are not allowed in the waka taua, war canoes, and are not allowed to be in the carvings on the war canoes either.  According to a Maori woman, the people rowing in the wakas must be at least 15 and of a certain height, but in the old days, the ability to swim was the deciding factor and age meant nothing.  She also told me that "Paihia" means "bay of tears" because there were many wars and death in that area.

After the waka ceremony, the warriors performed the traditional haka and then a couple more tribe-specific hakas.  There were three different groups of warriors present.  Even while stomping on sand, the haka was a powerful experience.

In addition to warriors, wakas and hakas, there are hundreds of tents selling food and trinkets. This is the first time I have ever experienced watermelon and ice cream.  They chop the watermelon in half-- scoop out a little of the top to form a dish and then add scoops of ice cream. Delicious.  I had "rainbow" ice cream (I have no idea what flavor it was) and Banana ice cream.  I would recommend the banana ice cream.  Hanging out with Argentineans means we've also tried Mate. We like it :)

following photos credited to federico valera

After going to bed late Friday night and waking up before the sun on Saturday, we all decided on a siesta then fiesta.  That night Rami cooked us dinner, we drank wine, spoke with some French women and went to the Salty Bar.  For those of you who are wondering, music in New Zealand is mainstream music from the States. This means that I can sing along and dance around to most, if not all, the songs played by the DJ.  All of us spent the evening dancing, Brian and I were re-living our mug days (i.e. sweat and loud music).  We did learn that most backpackers cannot dance or can't hear the music.. unclear.

After our weekend excursion in Paihia it was back south to Tauranga.

Jump Day Part Deux

Mai and I got ourselves up this morning to walk to Taupo Bungy.  It was early, so I wasn't incredibly enthused yet.  Mai opted out feeling she would do it at another destination, so she brought a camera to capture me diving 47m into a river.  They strapped me in and asked if I wanted to touch the water today.  I said, "I'd like to be completely in the water if possible."  I wanted to be part of the "Sole Club" in which you must have your entire body in the water so that only the soles of your shoes are above water.  As I shuffled my feet to the edge, like a prisoner walking the plank, the guy told me to just be sure to tuck my head into my chin when I hit the water to avoid face-planting.  Easy enough.

In the process of all this, Mai stood along the cliff side looking for a good shot.  She climbed the fence that said, "Do Not Climb Fence!" so she could get the whole of my jump on footage.  Unfortunately, she was spotted and the guy yelled at her to go back.  She still got a couple of great photos.  When asked by the man if that was my friend, I so cleverly responded, "Where?  I can't see."  During the first few moments of falling, I felt like I was going to die.  I let out a "Holy..." and when I found my voice, I cheered, quickly admired the world upside down, hit the water and went under.  By the time I realized I was underwater, I was pulled out again.  I started laughing and clapping as the bungee pulled me up and dropped me again.  It was such a rush and I can't wait to do it again. 

After a fairly tiring hike to the Huka Falls, we ventured back to the site of the bungee jump.  A day earlier, we had seen some kids in the river below jumping off maybe a 25 foot rock into the river below.  We decided we'd like to try that.  Only problem was, we had to swim across the Waikato River to get there.  It was only about 100 meters across, and the current didn't seem so bad.  After about 10 minutes of weighing the pros and cons, we decided to ford the river, Oregon Trail style.  We began swimming and felt we were doing quite well.  We had made it more than halfway across.  Suddenly, at the same time we realized the current had begun to drag us further downstream, and each stroke we took failed to bring us any further forward but instead, sideways.  We looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Umm... go back!"  So we literally swam for our lives back the way we came and, after a long struggle against the strong waters of the Waikato, we made it back to safety.  Although we failed to ford the river, we felt we gave it our best shot and being dragged downstream was not in our best interests.