New Zealand Program Week 2

This week started off with some free time in Auckland. Diana joined us from Australia, and a few of us went out to the airport to meet her. The next day we travelled from Auckland to Waitomo. In Waitomo we went on a very adventurous caving expedition. We spent about five or six hours in the caves, climbing, repelling, and crawling. After that we went to Castle Rock where we spent the next two days mountain biking and rock climbing, followed by soaking in the hot tub in the evenings. Then off on a road trip, in which we saw a giant multi-coloured kiwi bird, to Rotorua where we saw some boiling mud. Since Rotorua is on volcanic ground, there are pools of boiling mud everywhere and it smells like sulphur (or rotten eggs). In Rotorua we all got to go white water rafting. We went on a hour long adventure, complete with going down the worlds highest commercially rafted waterfall. After getting out of the chilly river we drove to some natural hot springs and soaked in those for a while. Then we continued down to Taupo where we spent the night. The following day we drove about five hours down to Wellington. On our drive down, we got to see a giant gum boot (a.k.a. rubber boot or rain boot). The next day in Wellington we spent the morning at the Te Papa Museum on a private tour going indepth in Maori culture and history followed by a Maori meal. And in the afternoon we went to the parliment building and got another private tour in which we learned about New Zealand's political system, which was more interesting than you would think!