Sweet as, I'm 24 and still kicken!

Dear Friends and Fam,

How's it all the way from Rotorua, New Zealand! I'll work my way back up to this point as always as I've been in transit for a week or so and have a little catching up to do. This blog might be a little choppy with less detail as I don't have the time or drive really at the moment to be super specific so I appologize up front. Anyway, I'll take off back from thanksgiving in Wollongong, Australia.

Pele drove down from Sydney with her friend Sarah whom we also met traveling through Europe to join us for our Thanksgiving feast. We couldn't track down a turkey so we got two stuffed chickens, heaps of mashed potatoes and some other yummies like cranberries and green bean cassarole, god bless the internet for helping us with that one! We all said what we were thankful for and it turned out to be a great thanksgiving!

The next day Mandy May toured us around the beautiful town on the beach and all the surrounding scenic points like the lighthouse and what not. We got some super good icecream and grinded some burgers before heading back to the house as the weather began to turn sour. We went out that night to a cool bar/club and than called it a night after a couple drinks.

Waking up the next day I started to catch what Meadow's had for quite awhile now, a cold and conjested sinus's with a cough, but we headed to the ocean for a quick surf anyway. The ocean cures all I definately believe or at least revives and relieves for a short time and I felt slightly better after a morning dip and surf. The weather cleared up considerably but than turned cloudy and overcast shortly after so we headed home for a lounge day with some TV continuing our series we started called "hero's" which is super corny but really easy to get hooked on as none of us have been around TV for quite awhile now! As night approached we thought we could sneak out on a Sunday without having to go out but as it turns out Sunday's are huge in Australia! Ahhhhh, so of course we went out for a few drinks and after my self proclaimed no drink night, Meadow bought me a tequila shot and away we went! We didn't have many and actually had a fun night with all the girls we met through Zoe and Jazinta (Di's daughter and friend). That night we went back to Mandy's and Meadow and Jay had a revlation that somehow of course I got conned into. We all decided it'd be a good idea to dye my chest hair black and shave a sun into it!? So, one dye job leads to another and the next thing I know my hair is black as well as my beard! It was a pretty hilarious night as we couldn't stop laughing and I thought Meadow and Jay were going to die at one point! So long story short that's why my hair is black now haha, but it's growing on me and I actually kinda like it haha.

The last day in Wollongong we went out on Di's golf course that her and her husband own and golfed 9 holes and drove carts for free and had an absolute blast despite all the flies that pestured you during your back swing. Jay and Amanda had never golfed before so it was pretty entertaining but they definately held their own and did pretty good considering. Meadow and myself whom had golfed still played pretty poorly but we all had a blast so it was well worth it.

Saying bye to Mandy the next day was tough as she'd taken really good care of us and she'll definately be missed, Di got caught up with work most the time so unfortunately we only got to see her for Thanksgiving night but it's no worries things happen of course.

The plane ride from Sydney to Auckland (New Zealand) was fine but going through security I've never felt so profiled in my entire life as I had to go through numerous screening with my backpack while getting questioned over and over if I did drugs or hung out with people that did. This was all because I had a recent Thailand visit on my passport so they grilled the hell out of me, it was really frusterating as they took out everything in my pack and clean my shoes for bacteria all while continuing to ask me rediculous questions but it's over now so I'm washing it away! We called Tom (my buddy whom I met in Greece and traveled with for 3 weeks in Europe) who came and picked us up. What a classic Kiwi Tom was at first sight with his sweet handle bars and mustache and his wannabee mullet hair cut! That first night we began to map out our next 4 days with Tom over the weekend and what we were going to do the rest of our short almost 3 week stay in New Zealand. The next day we took a bus from Tom's house to downtown to find a hostel and cruise the city for a day. Getting into the hostel the boys got in line to book the room while I went to the travelers booth to try and book a car for our journey. A super cute girl got in line behind me so of course I chatted it up with her and found out she was a Yank from Iowa at of all places. Caught me off guard because I don't think I've met anyone from the states in awhile, little alone from a none coastal state. We hit it off pretty well and she ended up hanging out with us later that night which turned out good because we went out to a club and after getting denied because we didn't have proper ID we ended up hanging out together back at the hostel. Backtracking a bit, that day we just wondered around downtown Auckland and met up with Jay's parents who are in New Zealand for awhile as well. We went to an island off mainland which boosted a little sleepy colonial style town. We hiked to the top of the hill on the island and caught a great view of downtown Auckland and the surrounding islands and of course got a killer jumpshot, Jay even got one with his parents who were stoked to finally find out what a jump shot is! Jay's parents were adorable as I found out they've been keeping up with my blog and asked my questions frequently about this and that and things I totally forgot about so it was very fun to talk with them. We ate a killer mexican meal that night at a place Jay discovered and the guys working there were from Bend, Oregon so go figure! To eat a good burrito was heaven I have to say!

The next day we hopped in Jay's parents car and took off north to the Bay of Islands. The first day we got there and ate some delicious food (thanks again to Jay's parents for treating us so many times, it really means a lot to a bunch of broke backpackers!) and settled into our hostel. by this time the weather had turned cloudy so we decided to hold off on kayaking until the next day and entertain ourselves in far better ways! So, don't think we're retarded but when you're backpacking and there's nothing to do you can become quite a bit rediculous with ideas to entertain your bordom. We first all got mustaches for the last remaining days of Movember (What they call November here to help promote prostate cancer awareness, which is why all the younger males grow mustaches) and than decided to play century club with our English housemates but playing with water! Century club is normally a college drinking game played with beer in which you drink a shot of beer a minute for 100 minutes! Well, it was my brilliant idea to switch is up with water and after 100 shots and not being able to pee, another rule enforced, we all began really sick and went to bed really early that night!

The next day we rented some sea kayaks and paddled up a river to a massive water fall which was absolutely amazing. We paddled back with the current to the ocean and around the islands. There were waves going into the island so we surfed some of the waves for a bit while also stopping on the shore to explore the islands for a little bit. After 4 hours of paddling my arms began to sting with pain and we headed back to shore. Jay's parents were going to stay another night so we hopped on a bus back to Auckland and met back up with Tom and crashed at his house for the night.

We all pilled into Tom's shaggen wagen van, fully equitted with a bed in the back and took off for the Coramandel Cove. We hiked down to Cathedral cover which was this spectacula beach with cliffs that had been eroded underneath so you could walk under them and they resembled thos cliffs of Thailand. The two beaches were connected by a massive cave in the hillside and will go down as one of the most beautiful beaches I've seen in my life. The drive along the Coromandal cove was incredible with turqoise water as far as the eye can see, massive rolling hills with diverse trees that crawled all the way up to the waters edge and a beautiful array of huvering puffy clouds amongst a royal blue sky. After our drive through Coromandel we took off for the Witoma Caves. We go into Witoma at about midnight so we pulled into a hostel with a camping area, pitched the tent where Jay and I slept and Meadow and Tom crashed in the camper van.

We woke up the next morning after a rough cold night of in and out sleep, used the bathroom facilities and took off before anyone noticed us for another free nights accomadation! I also woke up to Meadow screaming happy birthday to me followed by Tom and Jay which was so good to hear being away from home and kind of forgetting it was in fact my birthday! We drove across the street to where we booked our caving adventure for what would turn out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life. We all got our gear, full 5.0 wet suit and boots, and I wore a one peice womans swim suit over my wet suit that was to be my birthday suit! It was pretty disturbing but I had a lot of fun with it! Getting to the spot we first abseiled (repelling straight down) roughly 100 feet down a dark hole with the only light coming from our head lamps. Getting to the bottom we all turned off our lights and you could see hundreds of glow worms that acted like constilations of stars scattered across the massive cave ceilings above. We than zip linned over a waterfall below to get to the other side where we tubed down an underground river! After getting to the end our guide pulled us together on our tubes back as we turned off our lights and soaked in just what we were looking at and where we were, starring at thousands of glow warms about 50 ft up while floating on a river some 100 ft below the surface. Next, we slid down a waterfall on our stomaches and walked through some narrow passages to get to another waterfall that was a dead end. So, of course naturally we climbed the waterfall to the top and continued tunneling and at some points crawling through narrow underground passages as we followed the rushing water upstream. We got to another point where we did a bit of rock climbing and then continued crawling once we reached the top through mud and incredibly narrow spaces. I thought I was closterphobic but I never once felt confined or at harm it was incredible. Reaching the top and seeing light definately was relieving but we all came to the same conclusion that we could have spent hours more exploring the underground tunnel system of only one cave out of hundreds in the area! Caving is a life changing experience that honestly has opened up my eyes to just how incredible planet earth is and along with sky diving and underwater diving as changed the way I look at life. We got back in our car after running into Jay's parents and leaving Jay with them back at the caves before we headed to Raglan on the west coast. Raglan was a little surf town with some of the best known surf breaks in the world. We got to our cozy little hostel and rented some body boards right away and took off for the break. After a good surf we headed back to the hostel, made some delicious spaghetti and started the birthday festivites off. We enforced our games we played in Europe and got a good crew of English to join in with us. Meadow came up with another great idea so after a short while I had 24 birthday dots on my face from everyone to go along with my kick ass pirate bandana! Anyway, turned out to be an amazing birthday thanks to my buddies and one surely not to forget.

Yesterday we left Raglan and Tom took Meadow and I back up to Auckland to get our rental car and we took right back off south to where we are now, Rotorua. Our car is a little Ford manual hatchback and is pretty lame so we called it Dale. But the weather has been spectacular and there is so much to do here so I have to be off, I know there's plenty of stories I'm missing but oh well what can you do? Time to go get lost in the moment!

Cheers,
Grant