An Unexpected Day of Adventure

I woke up today not really knowing what I was going to do besides do a bit of tramping (that’s what they call hiking here in New Zealand) on a mountain that my couchsurfing host showed me. I’m staying on the outskirts of Rotorua for last night and tonight in the North Island of New Zealand. Other than that, I really had no idea where today was going to take me. Some of the most excellent times I’ve had in my life have started out that way, and today proved to be similar. A couple years ago I went to Guatemala just for a 4 day weekend without having any plans whatsoever as to what I was going to do while I was there. A hiking trip to a volcano and roasting marshmallows by way of lava turned out to be a sweet deal for not having planned anything before I went down. Anyways, back to today; I ended up eating breakfast at trusty old McDonald’s. Yes, I hate it as much as the next guy, but I do have a weakness for their hotcakes in the morning if I’m up in time. Then I went on a 2 hour hike with some beautiful vantage points overlooking the city of Rotorua. This caused me to linger, take a couple of pictures, and soak it all in for a bit. It’s times like these when I wonder how people can deny that there is a Creator God. There had to be Someone who made all this majestic creation. It was really breathtaking and I’ll try to remember to post pictures on here soon.

After that, I went to the I-site, aka the visitor’s center to check my email and also to see what else there was to do. While browsing some brochures I came across a picture of a person in a huge inflatable ball. I’ve always wanted to try that and didn’t even know what it was called before I did it today. It was called the Zorb and it was a shot of pleasure in my neuroreceptors. You get in this huge inflatable ball, get in a harness, and then you roll down a hill, head over heels until you reach the bottom. For some reason, whenever I do anything that causes a bit of adrenaline, I can’t help but erupt in laughter. It happened when I was in South Africa and went bungy jumping. It happened when I went shark diving. It happened when I played with lion cubs. It also happened all 3 times that I went sky diving. There is something about that rush of adrenaline that produces a euphoria that simply must be released by way of a good hearty laugh.

Next was luging. For those of you who don’t know what this is, imagine street luging on an elementary scale. I took a gondola ride up a side of a mountain and then got myself somehow seated in a luge that was built for people much more petite than me. Three rides were only $2 more than 1 ride so of course I did the three rides to get the most bang for my buck. It too was pretty thrilling and I found myself wanting to let out a yelp or yahoo or something similar and did so on one occasion that I can think of. Again, the adrenaline rush just causes me to have a big smile on my face and in my heart. It’s those moments when you truly feel alive. Who was it that said life isn’t measured by the amount of breaths we take but rather by the moments that take our breath away? Today was one of those days all the way around. First with the tramping, then with the zorbing, and finally ending with the luging.

To top it all off, I got back to my couchsurfing host’s place around 7 pm tonight and he and his girlfriend really put on a feast for dinner. He put me in charge of dessert so I decided to do something I had just learned was unique to New Zealand. They have these biscuits (what we would call cookies) that are called Tim Tams. What you do is you bite off one corner (they’re rectangular prisms) then bite off the corner diagonally opposite. After that, you dip one corner into a cup of hot chocolate and suck through the opposite corner to get the hot chocolate to come through the cookie. If you’re thinking of a regular cookie it wouldn’t work obviously but this is more porous than your average cookie. What happens is that the hot chocolate melts the inside of the Tim Tam and then you have to wolf it down quickly prior to it breaking off into your hot chocolate. It is like chocolate heaven. This is coming from someone who loves chocolate a little too much to begin with, mind you. Before the wonderful experience of dessert, we had a great spread including lamb chops marinated in some middle eastern spices, mashed potatoes which I’m starting to like if they’re done up correctly, rice, and this tomato and basil salsa that you ate by itself which was quite good in spite of my usual aversion towards tomatoes. There were also some chili peppers fresh from his garden thrown in there so that spiced it up in a particularly pleasant way.

As I titled this post, it was an unexpected day of adventure, but one I would gladly repeat if given the chance. Tomorrow, I’m going to go tramping again (need to get in shape for Maccu Piccu in April) and then hit the road again for the Coromandel Peninsula. I’ll let you know what lies down that road when I get there.