I am in love

I am totally in love with New Zealand (En Zed) and may never, ever want to leave. I am actually sad that I am leaving for Australia tomorrow!

Today I went canyoning and it was completely incredible. I was picked up at the Sky Tower by our wonderfully nice guide named Cam, and we also picked up a girl a few years older than me from Manchester; her name is Elizabeth. We had a lot in common and exchanged e-mails; she told me about this pub that has live music and is right on the harbor, so I am going there after I write this to have dinner.

We drove to Piha, this little community right on the Tasman Sea in the Waitakere mountain ranges, about forty minutes west of Auckland. There we joined up with an Australian couple from Melbourne who also came on our tour. The beach was incredibly beautiful black sand and after our adventure Cam let Elizabeth and I just explore.

After we got suited up in our wetsuits, we drove to the trailhead and began our hike. After a steep, long climb (on the way stopped to rest and got juice and chocolate, so it wasn't that grueling), we ended up at the top of a waterfall that we rappelled (they call it abseiling, which is ridiculous) down in three parts. Here is me rappelling and all of us at the bottom after the third stretch.

We had lunch at the bottom, then hiked a bit through the canyon and rappelled not just down a waterfall, but IN a waterfall. That was extremely intense, but very fun. Cam told us that "if you feel you can't breathe, just tilt your head down and there will be a pocket of air!" I think he was lying, because I never discovered this mysterious air pocket.


That was the last of our rappelling. Afterwards we scrambled through the canyon, squeezing ourselves through caves and jumping off cliffs (sorry Mom!). The canyon was lush and green, the sun was shining (this was incredible luck; it had been raining here for the past few days), and I never wanted to leave. By the way, the thing that looks like a red diaper is actually my harness. No making fun of me.


Now I am back in the city and I love it. I am having the best time and can't believe I have to leave tomorrow. I'm headed out to a bar where everything is made from ice, and then I'm going to have dinner and then come back and pack. I need to be ready to go by 5 in the morning tomorrow!!!