New Zealand part 1! New Plymouth edition

(September 10-September 16)

New Zealand is a lot further away than one would expect, and really freakin close to Antarctica! As our plane descended into Auckland, we were inches away from touching down when the aircraft suddenly lifted up again. The pilot came on the speaker and said, “sorry about that folks. There were some birds on the runway, I’m just going to circle around and hopefully they’ll clear off.” Where else does that happen?! I liked New Zealand already.

We flew in on a Saturday morning, with really no game plan. The kickoff game was the previous day, and we had tickets to see the USA play Ireland tomorrow in New Plymouth. Jillian and I were getting our things together at the airport when we realized Jillian’s money transfer didn’t go through so she couldn’t take out any money, and I had lost my debit card in Bali, so had only my credit card. Being Saturday morning in New Zealand, all the banks were closed and all the banks in America had just closed, being a Friday afternoon, for the weekend. So there was no way for either of us to get any cash until Monday night in New Zealand when the banks in America would open back up. Great. We managed to get tickets to the bus downtown, and found a café to use internet and organize ourselves (all on my credit card). We couldn’t buy a car because we needed cash, so we had to rent a car. A lot of the rental companies were all booked up from the world cup, but after a few tries we managed to get a little (tiny) hatchback from Jucy. We walked down to the car rental place, and luckily their computers were down, so they couldn’t process my payment, which would have surely been declined. So we were off in our little rental, which would be our home for the next three weeks. New Zealand is a funny little country. Being an island, they're oddly behind in some things like movies, they have to import so many things so its expensive, yet they're up on odd pop-culture things, like Jersey Shore (unfortunately) and some terrible Bruno Mars music (sorry, I really don't like him). AND! They drive on the left side of the road. Of course our car was manual, and the shifter on the left side of the driver’s seat (thank goodness the clutch is still on the left). Driving on the left wasn’t too hard to adjust to, but those darn windshield wipers I still can’t get a handle on. Every time I try to use the turn signal, the windshield wipers come on.

Jillian had signed up for couch surfing, a network of hosts and travelers finding free places for backpackers to stay. This group of guys in New Plymouth were willing to host us for the game, so we were on our way to New Plymouth! With a stop on the way for a cell phone, pants! (who knew it was going to be so cold here) and some other essentials. We arrived at Keith’s house around 9 that night. Three guys lived in the house, just a year or two older than us, and were the sweetest, goofiest guys I had ever met. They let us drop our stuff, gave us funny looks when we said we don’t need to shower, then took us to their friends’ house down the road. In preparation for the USA v. Ireland game, a bunch of Irish girls from Auckland and Wellington were coming to New Plymouth. The guys kept saying the Irish want to fight us, but we got in and they were so welcoming and friendly, though confident they were going to win tomorrow (and rightly so). They were all pretty drunk when we got there, and before long all the girls were saying, let’s go into town, we’re going into town! We apologized and told them how pathetic we were having absolutely no cash, but they took us anyway, paid for our cab (so expensive!) and for our drinks! So we went to this spot set up for the world cup, which is really just a tent over a street downtown, with a bar set up and a band. It was okay, kind of weird, but they were all into it. We walked home since all the cabs were full, and finally went to bed, having not slept on the plane and still sore from hiking up that darn volcano, at 4 in the morning.

We woke up to our first day in New Plymouth with miserable weather. Keith made us breakfast (seriously, nicest guys ever) and asked us what we were going to do today. We looked outside, and just really didn’t want to do anything. We were still jetlagged, disorganized, and cooold. They kept coming up with things for us to do. Kade suggested we should go see the fastest waterslide in New Zealand! since it’s in Taranaki (the region where New Plymouth is) and he was really excited about that. Keith came up with the idea that we could go blow bubbles on the top of the mountain. Genius, Keith. So we just left the house in search of coffee (all they had was instant, and were disgusted that we drink it black. I had to put some milk in mine to appease Keith). We managed to find a coffee shop with the most avid USA supporters (just a quick note about coffee in New Zealand. No one has drip coffee, it’s all espresso. And don’t expect a cappuccino when you order one. A cappuccino, latte, and a flat white is all the same thing.) who offered to drive us to the game! After some planning and coffee, we went to explore New Plymouth in the rain. We did so by just driving around Mt Taranaki. It took forever on the “surfer highway” and we actually couldn’t even see the huge mountain because visibility was so bad from the rain. Mission failed. But we did see a lot of the beach!

We managed to get back to Keith’s later than we wanted to get ready for our first game!! We were busy getting our little pathetic outfits on, which was just our temple rugby tee-shirts and awesome USA sunglasses we got in Bangkok (don’t worry-our outfits will get better), while frantically looking for our ticket confirmation. Keith just looked at us in disbelief, saying, “you have 45 minutes to kick off, and you don’t know where your tickets are?” Heh, of course not. He took pity on us, and drove us to the stadium, still cashless. We got our tickets for all the games at the box office no problem, but couldn’t buy any food or drinks. But that’s alright cause our seats were amazing! We were about 10 rows back from midfield, right behind the USA team! They even face us for the national anthems. Oddly enough, the game was on September 11th, the tenth anniversary no less, so we had a moment of silence for the states, which some dude ruined by screaming “GO USA” after not a full moment of silence. The Irish supporters completely outnumbered the USA fans…by a long shot. And no surprise we lost 22-10, but we actually had a fairly good game, and scored our only try in the last 30 seconds, so at least we had an exciting finish.

After the game we didn’t have the cash to get into the bar that the USA team was supposed to show up at, so we had to settle at a bar down the street where we had fish and chips (yuck. no offense) and watched Wales play South Africa. Wow!! What a match. And that is when I fell in love with the scrumhalf from Wales, Mike Phillips. Almost as in love as I am with Waisalle Serevi from when he played for Fiji 7s. It was a tough match to watch, because I love how both teams play and I would love for either of them to win the World Cup. I think over any other team, maybe even the All Blacks. Maybe. South Africa just scraped by with a 17-16 win. We watched the game at two different bars, leaving the first bar to escape from creepy Americans, only to be approached by even worse Americans at the next bar. Maybe we should have ditched the USA sunglasses.

Keith picked us up from the bar and let us sleep on the couch another night. We were planning on getting up early and starting our circle around the North Island, but considering what we had gone through the past couple days, we slept in. Really really late. It was kind of embarrassing when Jimmy came in on a break from work at noon, and we were still in our sleeping bags. So we skipped out on the glowworms at Waitomo Caves (too expensive anyway, you go tubing through a cave with glowworms, but it costs over a hundred bucks) and went straight to Taupo for the night. Taupo is a cute little mountain town on Lake Taupo. Really the thing to do there is to see the lake. So we only stayed the night there, having seen the lake, checked in at a backpackers hostel, made a ravioli dinner and watched the replay of the World Cup opening match, New Zealand v. Tonga. Poor Tonga.

In the morning, we were off to Rotorua, land of Labyrinth stench (if you’ve ever seen the Labryinth, the one with David Bowie, bubbling sulfur pools always reminds me of the bubbling ooze in that movie). Rotorua is a thermal landmine, with hot springs, thermal springs, and steaming sulfur pools galore. We got into town, not even realizing that Samoa and Namibia were playing at the Rotorua stadium the next day, and luckily found accommodation easily. Who said it was going to be hard traveling with the world cup? The problem only still remained the price of things, regardless of the world cup. The hostels in this area are all licensed, so you can’t bring in your own alcohol. Even though the prices at the hostels are on the cheap side, it’s never as cheap as bringing your own. So we had to be a little ghetto to save some cash. Ever see “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia”? Then you would appreciate us buying cans of soda to drink specifically so we could pour wine in the empty cans. Yep, we did it. We snuck in a bottle of wine with our bread and cheese dinner, and drank it out of soda cans. It was probably completely unnecessary, I really think opaque glasses would have sufficed, but who doesn’t want to drink wine out of a soda can and be like Danny Devito? We also made our own guacamole, and dined in style.

Having saved a penny or two, we spent all of our money on adventures in Rotorua. In the morning, we went rafting! And to appease those New Zealand superlatives they love so much, the river we rafted has the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world! 7 meters. Which really makes it the best rafting in the world. But really, it was just the best guide in the world: Bradley. Bradley was a riot. He had to do all the generic jokes scripted into the guides’ routine, but he did things like push off the landing without letting the last guy in, so we all had to back paddle while he sat and laughed at him. Later, we were going over some rapids and Bradley says, “keep paddling, don’t stop, keep paddling!!” to which, of course, Jillian and I diligently obeyed. He cracked up, saying no one ever actually listens to him, no one paddles through the rapids! And of course we don’t learn our lesson, when he yells, “okay jump in! go for a swim”. I look at the other rafts ahead of us, no one else is going swimming…but Bradley insists we swim, so we jump in. Then he immediately yells, “get back in the raft! Get back in, there’s rapids ahead, hurry up!” So we all struggle to get back in the raft before we hit the rapids. And Bradley’s just cracking up. How did we get stuck with this guy? But we made it through the rafting fine, and only one guy fell out over the 7 meter waterfall (I blame that on Bradley’s instruction, not on me and Jillian’s bad steering being from the front of the raft)

That afternoon was the Namibia v Samoa game in Rotorua, which we managed to get back in time for…but we had other priorities while in town. After a quick financial analysis, we decided to go for the 3D maze! (and who wouldn’t chose the 3D maze? I hate to say it, but it’s just so hard to watch Namibia get beat so badly every time, I feel so sorry for them!) The maze was awesome. Some guy built this large maze that has stairs to connect different parts of it. The objective is to get to every corner and exit from the same door you entered- and there are three places you can enter from. Rotorua really is like the Labyrinth! So Jillian and I picked different entrances, and raced. I would say it was a tight race, and it seemed like it would be at first, but I did have to go back in to help Jillian get out. But we won’t talk about that. We had a picnic lunch of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, our daily special, then headed back to town to watch a bunch of rugby. It was the first time I had seen Canada play (against Tonga) and I fell for them instantly. Good thing they’re on the same continent as us so I can cheer for them, and now when the US continues to not do well, I can just say I’m Canadian and gain just a little respect (maybe avoid some creepy Americans).

Our lost stop in Rotorua before heading out was Hell’s Gate, New Zealand’s top thermal attraction. We left in the morning for our three hours of mud baths and sulfur spas. First, we got a tour of all the bubbling sulfur pools, all named something profound, like “infant” because it reminded the founder of little kids playing, or “pig roast” because the bath was hot enough to roast a pig. Actually, I think I made that second one up, but the Maori tour guide said he thinks we should really use these pools for cooking because we would save a lot of energy. And what is a tour in New Zealand without a superlative: Hell’s Gate has the largest thermal waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere! So if you ever see a thermal waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere, just know the one in Hell’s Gate is bigger. We concluded of course with our luxurious mud bath and sulfur spa, and ended smelling like crap! Our bathing suits tainted by the smell of sulfur. Just in time to return to New Plymouth!

We drove the few hours back to New Plymouth, ready to see USA take on Russia! We got to Keith’s house (so nice for letting us stay on their couch again!) and this time, we were so ready! We had face paint, an American flag, ribbon for our hair, and the best part: we finally had cash! The boys were all coming to the game too, so after writing “I love USA” on all their cheeks, we were good to go! It was raining and cold, but it was so much fun, and the guys were great. Some of them dressed like Bruce Springsteen, Keith wore a Hawaiin shirt, and they were louder than any of the fans. We had to ditch them for our totally awesome seats right behind the team, even closer than last game, and best part of the night…we were on TV! I don’t know if it was on real television or not, but it was on the big screen in the stadium! That was even cooler than winning the game! We went into town and hung out under the tent again, which is apparently all there is to do in New Plymouth. And honestly, I was relieved to finally be in an English speaking country after spending 5 weeks in Southeast Asia, but I think it’s even harder to understand people here! I met Keith’s boss at tent, and I really couldn’t understand a word he was saying cause his Kiwi accent was so thick!

We stayed one more day in New Plymouth to recharge and make the boys dinner for being such great hosts. For the first time in our New Plymouth experience, the sun was out! So we climbed a little mountain because the big mountain, Mt. Taranaki, is too harsh for us. It takes a whole day and some snow gear to climb. And by little mountain, I mean we just climbed up a big rock, and it took like 15 minutes. Keith told us we would be able to see all of New Zealand, which was a lie, but we could see a lot of New Plymouth, the ocean and the farmland outside of Taranaki. It was a gorgeous view. We headed back to the boys house for the rest of the afternoon, and they wanted us to watch a movie with them. Sounds cute, but they put on the worst movie I have ever seen: Once Were Warriors. It’s a stupid movie about Maori culture and all you get from it is domestic abuse, a lot of violence and kids rebelling and misery. Why wouldn’t they pick Whale Rider? That Maori movie is great.

After the stupid movie, we made our fancy dinner for the boys: strawberry and almond salad, tomato tarts and shrimp linguini, then watched the All Blacks crush Japan. Poor Japan. After the match was the quarter finals of the National Rugby League, a mostly Australian sport. It’s similar to the rugby I know, but some of the rules are different and the tackling is kind of lame. There are 15+ rugby league teams in Australia, and one in New Zealand, the Warriors, and they were in the quarters, so it’s very exciting for New Zealand. And they won! There were two faulty calls from the ref that won them the game, but still they won! Keith’s friend said well, I don’t think they should have won that one, but I’m really glad they did. So they’ll play in the semis next weekend!

In the middle of the games, I got a call from one of Moira’s friends, John Walsh. Moira is a Kiwi that has been living in the states, but has some great connections for us in New Zealand, such as John Walsh. He called me, asked where I was, and if I wanted to go see South Africa play Fiji tomorrow in Wellington. Of course!!! SA is Jillian’s favorite team, and I love watching them play. So just like that we had two tickets to see South Africa, and we will be on our way to Wellington in the morning.