“Does anyone want to sing?” asked the tour guide at the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. I had been dreading this question but Mom had been looking forward to it, so we put up our hands (some of us more enthusiastically than others) and sang in the cave’s “cathedral”. We “wowed” the other people on the tour with an enthusiastic rendition of O’Canada and the acoustics were amazing! We weren’t allowed to video – which was slightly disappointing but by the end of our national anthem, I may have been enjoying myself…
On Monday morning we left the Middleton’s and drove three hours along another curvy road to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Along the way was some more beautiful scenery, dotted with flocks of sheep, so when we needed a break from the long twisty road we hopped out to see the beautiful valley.Random photo of me feeling tall in a tunnel because I could actually touch the roof. Although, if you look at Cassia with her hands flat on the roof and then at me with just my fingertips touching, I don’t seem so tall… I’m not very short (about average) but everyone in our small corner of Saskatchewan seems to be very tall, making me the short one.????The first glowworm cave we went to did not permit photography. At first, this was too bad because I wanted to have photos to share but everything turned out all right. It meant I could tilt my head back and fully experience the moment. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen photos of a glowworm cave before, but when you look up above you in the pitch-black dark all you can see are these fluorescent turquoise spots stuck to the roof of the ceiling. To get out of the cave, and go through the darkest part of the cave where the most glowworms were, we had to sit in a boat and the dock is where we took our first photo of the tour. This cave was the one we sang O’Canada in, as mentioned at the beginning of this post.We visited a second glow worm cave – this one had a huge spiral entrance to it, and we were also allowed to video and photograph inside so you’ll get to see some glowworms here.
We also sang halfway down the spiral walkway to get the full effect and best acoustics. This is “Amazing Grace” but sung in a more campfire-like style.There were stunning stalactites and stalagmites along the path in the cave.Here are some glowworms! They were not as plentiful in this cave but it was still so cool to be looking up 20 feet at these worms anchored to the ceiling. The interesting thing about them is they attach to the ceiling and then have strings hanging from several spots around them and their light attracts the food to them. Their light is actually their poop which is blue because of the stuff they use to digest the bugs. After the two cave tours, we headed on down the road to Rotorua, our home for the next couple of days. (Fun fact: it smelled really badly of rotten eggs because of all of the sulphur in the area – thankfully we *kind of* got used to it.)Tuesday came around and brought the wet with it, so we sought shelter in the Agrodome. This place was so cool and the sheep show was also very cool! As part of the sheep show, we got to see dogs running up and down the sheep (something they’re trained to do to help with herding and it doesn’t hurt the sheep) which looked quite precarious at times. Once this show was done we braved the weather and headed outside to see a sheepdog do its job, which was super cool to watch, especially as the dog was incredibly well trained!Cassia even got to milk a cow during the show and Lanaya got to feed the lambs… As Lanaya was feeding the lamb, their mouth slipped off the bottle and the milk flung up into Lanaya’s face and mouth. Her expression of utter horror and disgust was probably the best part, not going to lie…????There was a baby animal petting farm and these little kids were enjoying the fact they could climb up and get out of their pen. This little guy also seemed to be enjoying the fact he could reach the ends of my braids – kinda cute, kinda nasty… I haven’t decided yet. Also, peep the cute little lamb behind me! These ones had black faces and hooves but fluffy, curly white wool all over the rest of its body, making it look so adorable.As the rain wasn’t letting up we headed over to the hot springs. These ones were piped into different pools, which were different temperatures, leaving us to choose the heat we wanted.It was so cool to be sitting in 40*C water with the rain pouring down, cooling off what whatever wasn’t covered by the water. The pools also overlooked the lake! One interesting, although painful, part of the pools was the rock walk. It was this super shallow water with rocks placed along the bottom – meant to hit certain stress points on your feet as you walked over them. It was funny listening to other people walk over them as it was a very quiet place and then you would hear people quietly moaning as they tried to mask their pain.
For Cassia’s 15th birthday we all went together and gifted her Bungy jumping! She likes adrenaline, although it did take her just under six minutes to get off the platform – but I can’t blame her because I didn’t even want to go near that platform. I compiled this video from the three different viewpoints we all stationed ourselves at in order to get the best video, as well as a stranger who sent us their video of Cassia.Here is Cassia after her jump with her certificate of bravery – which was well deserved – and her new shirt, because why live on the edge when you can jump off?Here’s the behind-the-scenes of the lengths I go to for the perfect shot of Cassia, as well as the platform she jumped from.
We finally caught me dropping the seat backwards on Lanaya, with a little bit of secret planning ahead of time. It may not seem like much – but we had many a laugh over that minivan!After Taupo and a quick stop at Huka Falls, we headed back to Rotorua where we used Christmas money from our Grampa and Grandma to go luging! (Peep Lanaya’s hair which she braided all by herself – but only because I told her I would not braid her hair every day anymore and so taught her how to do it herself.)My family can be slightly competitive – hence the look of terror on Lanaya’s face as they fly down the mountain because Dad is yelling threats of passing from behind. I’m pretty sure Cassia was the first person down the mountain each time and I was the last. Guess I missed the love of speed and recklessly flying down mountains in our family – but there were times I gave Lanaya a run for her money.My mom on the tail of Dad and Lanaya… and me almost caught up to the rest of the family. There were different difficulties of the tracks but we found that the easy one was the best because you could go faster as the corners were not quite as tight. There were two tracks and we each had five times down the hill, which was a pretty good amount and if you ever get the chance – more is better in this case.This is a photo of a screen, hence the not very good quality but as we went back up the hill on the chair lift there was a camera at the top. So, my parents decided that since it was their anniversary they would embarrass their kids…Overlooking Rotorua.We figured we should document my parent’s 20th anniversary somehow. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to spend their anniversary with three teenagers!? ????The next day we left our Airbnb in the smelly town and headed up the island. Along the way, we stopped at Karangahake, a very cool hiking trail that wove through old mine shafts in a valley. Some parts were a little eerie when all you could hear was the dripping water and it was pitch black as we were literally heading towards the light at the end of the tunnel but it was cool. The reason for Lanaya and I’s strange pose is because of a show we used to watch called “Fit for Fashion” and the photographers would always be telling the contestants to elongate their limbs and this was our interpretation of the phrase…????Our next stop that day was Hot Water Beach. This beach was probably one of the coolest parts of the trip, and an experience I would definitely repeat if I ever get the chance! Here is Mom, with our rental shovel…Hot Water Beach is a beach that has natural hot springs running under the sand and when you dig into the sand you’ll encounter the hot water – which flows up and fills your own little hot tub. The man was super helpful because as we set our stuff down to dig, we originally began to dig at the source of the spring – which was burning hot. So he moved us down the beach where we could channel the very hot water into our hot tub – that also had a cold spring running into it, allowing us to pick our temperature quite nicely.You could sit in your hot tub or you could jump the waves in the *very cold* ocean. And, believe it or not, I actually swam in the ocean. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I am slightly terrified of water, especially open water like an ocean, which means making myself get into the water is quite the feat. Anyhow, I made it in and I had a blast – except for the time the ocean punched me in the face, that wasn’t so pleasant. The waves that came in were perfect body surfing, and sometimes you could get successive waves that were absolutely awesome. But if you notice the rock to the right of us, as successive waves hit the rock they would build up – until all the force made the waves slam around the rock. This happened right after I had ridden a wave and was trying to stand up and the water poured around the rock and slammed into my face. I was not at all expecting it, as I still had my eyes closed so it literally felt like the ocean reached up and slapped me… fun times. After the amazing time at the beach, we headed for a ferry, which was the short cut from the peninsula back to the main island; however, it was closed to cars so we had to take the long route. We did get fish and chips out of it though, so I guess you could say it was worth it.After staying the night at a cute motel, we began the long drive to Auckland, where our plane was scheduled to fly out that night. We stopped at a grocery store along the way to buy some of the delicious foods that are a New Zealand specialty (like pineapple lumps), and then spent forever trying to fit everything into our luggage again – without going over the weight limit. The road to Auckland was, once again, a narrow, curvy road – this time along the coast, but it was still sickening. Here we are pictured with our last Bundaberg Ginger Beer – a truly deliciously sad event.I think I’ve mentioned before that our family often travels based on food – so here we are eating fancy ice cream from Giapo’s. Mom is not a huge dessert fan but she still raves about her Yorkshire pudding that was filled with two different types of ice cream, with chocolate drizzled over top and finished off with a sprinkle of freeze-dried raspberries and gold flakes.Lanaya and I got chocolate lips that were filled with ice cream and then put on an edible stick made of a chocolate chip cookie. After ice cream, we did a little bit more shopping, in order to spend the rest of our New Zealand money that had been gifted to us from our Aunties. I got a really nice NZ duffel bag, Lanaya – who had somehow spent most of her money already – bought a neck pillow for the plane, and Cassia waited until the very last minute (we were through security in the airport) to buy a super cute bucket hat! Here we are in front of the Internation Departures sign in AKL, where we left our parents and headed home on our own. My parents were scheduled to fly down to the south Island the next day, as Dad had two more conferences and then they were heading to Raratonga for their 20th-anniversary trip! It would have been so cool to continue on to the south Island but since I am in Grade 12, I didn’t figure I should miss more than three weeks of school…It was super cool to be served New Zealand’s very own Kapiti ice cream on the plane ride back to Vancouver.I thought I barely got any sleep on the way home but Lanaya has informed me that she watched three movies while I was sleeping, so apparently I did get quite a bit of sleep… I knew I would be exhausted so I shut off my movie and pulled my buff over my eyes to try and sleep. During this time Cassia and Lanaya discovered they could order eyemasks and earplugs from the stewardess using their screens. When I woke up for breakfast, Lanaya told me she stayed up the whole flight watching movies and that she was going to sleep now. So she crawled onto the floor – but it turns out you are not allowed to sleep on the floor…She was right out, which made hauling her off the floor a slightly embarrassing ordeal. When I finally got her up she was so disorientated that she put her head on my shoulder and went back to sleep. They offered her breakfast and so I asked her what she wanted – to which I got a mumbled response. When she woke up a little bit later she began scowling at me as she asked what was on her tray. She began to argue with me that she didn’t want it and she had never talked to me to tell me what she wanted. So that breakfast went back to the stewardess… She was so out of it, it was embarrassing – as you can tell by my face. Moral of this story: staying up all night to watch movies is not worth it.My cousin Joanna picked us up from the airport and took us over to Grandad and Grandma’s to have a quick visit with them again before heading over to my Aunty Selene’s for the night.The next morning we went back to the airport, where we met up with my Grampa and Grandma, who were going to look after us for the next couple of weeks. After all of New Zealand’s green hills (it was their Spring), our flat fields that were mostly harvested were certainly a different look. As we flew into Regina, the sunset was incredibly beautiful and it felt so good to be home after all those hours we spent travelling.Home sweet home – except for the fact we had to drive three more hours, but landing in Regina was such a good feeling.
Our trip to New Zealand was one of my most favourite trips ever. I made so many memories – some of which I’m not writing on here as I think they’d best stay in the family. I think one of the reasons this trip was so amazing was because of the way we disconnected. We had small amounts of time each day to keep in touch with our friends but other than that, our phones were only used to take pictures. Almost every day we were in the car for hours at a time, in order to see as much of the country as possible. During those times we sang A LOT, to the point I was drinking a ton of water to keep my throat from drying out… I would recommend New Zealand to anyone!
Fascinating and so well written. We could just feel your enthusiasm through your pictures and words. Absolutely wonderful photography. I loved your singing in the cave and I am still shivering over the memory of Cassia’s bungy jump. Thank you so much. Love Grandma and Grampa
Fantastic account Raquenna ! So glad you had such a happy time together.
Now you know why I still love NZ!
Grandma & Grandad
I definitely do have a better understanding of why you love your first home so much!!! It was so cool to see the north Island!
Thank You again! Loved it all!
So glad you did!
Fascinating and so well written. We could just feel your enthusiasm through your pictures and words. Absolutely wonderful photography. I loved your singing in the cave and I am still shivering over the memory of Cassia’s bungy jump. Thank you so much. Love Grandma and Grampa
Thank you! I definitely got some adrenaline just from watching Cassia go bungy jumping!