kiwi-land

Road trip weekends are usually some of my favorites.  No airport, no liquid limits, no planes and usually a far more relaxed schedule. I just think they’re a bit easier.  Of course that’s probably because I’m never the one driving on opposite sides of unfamiliar and windy foreign roads.

We left Friday afternoon for Waitomo.  Thankfully, it wasn’t too far away and after a few hours drive into the New Zealand countryside (only 1 or so in the dark- thank goodness) we arrived around dinnertime.

Waitomo is a tiny little town (the owner of our B&B introduced himself and his wife and already we had met 5% of the population) and famous for their caves or more specifically the glow worms that inhabit them. 

After a break-of-dawn wake-up call from the local birds who apparently had scheduled an all out fight club underneath our open window, we headed down for breakfast and then across the street to meet up with our cave guide.

Glow worms are actually not worms at all.  They are in fact flies in their larva stage…yeah, maggots.  But, as our tour guide pointed out, they probably couldn’t get 500k tourists a year to come see glowing maggots. 

Call them what you will, these little creatures create an experience like no other.  I was like we were on a boat ride underneath the milky way.  It felt like a Disney ride it was so incredibly beautiful…

Pictures above are courtesy of our tour company, Spellbound, because these little buggers are practically impossible to capture in a cave so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face.  If you ever go here you MUST book with them. Seriously perfect tour company- passionate, professional and intimate.

We floated down the small stream that runs through the cave staring upward with mouths agape at the sheer volume and magical beauty of these tiny little lights.  It was one of those experiences you have where you just can’t deny the awesomeness of our planet.

It was also very cool to see how much night vision we actually have.  Our guide had asked us at a certain point to turn off our headlamps and asked if we could see our hand in front of our face.  Nope.  Then as we boarded the raft he asked if we could see him.  Nope.  After 30 or so minutes with nothing but the light of glowing maggot butts, we could see each other plainly.  Also awesome- the human body.

After our glow worm cave we had some tea and biscuits (aka- cookies, aka- none for me, aka- longest Lent ever) before heading down to our next cave.  No real glow worms to speak of since there wasn’t a stream so no food source.  It was an interesting cave as far as caves go.  I think I’ll recommend they switch the order though because the glow worms should definitely be the finale to this tour.

We had a quick lunch when we arrived back in Waitomo and then made our way to Rotorua.

Rotorua (Maori for “second lake” as this was the second lake found by the local chief of the area tribe) is a pretty popular destination on the North Island.  It is home to the largest concentration of Maori people, the world’s newest geothermal landscape and about a million ways to make you want to pee your pants.  Seriously, daredevils need look no further than NZ to get their thrills.  From skydiving, to bungee, to being rolled down a mountain in a giant plastic ball- they know how to get the adrenalin pumping.

Seeing as we have a couple of mortgages and plan to have a family one day we skipped the dangerous attractions and took advantage of the other two.

We arrived on Saturday just in time for our evening cultural show.  It was pretty much a nightmare.  Rarely will the reviews on TripAdvisor send you far astray, but oh brother did they fail us here.  Tourist trap from hell.  Even through all the hokey crap and being herded around like cattle all night, my interest in the Maori culture is still very peaked.  These people were some kind of badass.

The only good part of the evening was the show (which was way too short)…

Early the next morning we set off for our last tour of the weekend to the geothermal areas.  Well, actually all of Rotorua is because the actual town is built inside the caldera of a volcano.  File that under: things I could have lived without knowing.

We had a wonderful guide, who was also Maori so he gave us a scientific as well as cultural view of the area.   It was a great morning tromping through the bush to see mud pools, toxic pools of boiling acid, the world’s largest hot springs and even a geyser…

 

Oh and even a Green Bay Packer…

Brandon Chillar (#54 linebacker) and his brother were on our tour.  We were the only people under 72 and the only Americans so we were hanging and chatting all day with them. Through the course of one conversation Julie asked “Just what do you do for work in Wisconsin?”  To which he modestly answered “I play football.”  Um, you’re a freaking starter for the Packers, aka- current national champs (although he didn’t play the actual SB due to injury).  He really was the nicest guy, very funny and might just be a reason for me to start watching pro ball.

All in all a pretty cool weekend in a beautiful country.  Wish we had more time in New Zealand, but the bestie is on his way to Australia so we’ve got to head back!

Pics from the weekend…

 

up north

The "road" part of our road trip to Northern Ireland was much easier than our excursion to the West. We left Friday evening and after a couple of hours on a “dual carriageway” we were there. Well, we did get a little lost finding the hotel, but considering we had no gps and Northern Ireland loves their roundabouts even more than their southern counterpart I think we did a fine, fine job. The Wife really is the master of left-sided driving now.

Saturday we took the coastal highway north to see the Giant’s Causeway. On the way we happened upon a castle at Carrickfergus (which was where Andrew Jackson was born... the town, not the castle)…




We also stopped at the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge and even though my anxiety was through the roof I actually crossed the dang thing…

do you see that bridge??




It rained most of the time we were on the little island and I refused to cross back until the wind/rain let up. Precarious rope bridge + jagged rocks far below + wind = I don't think so.

Just a few miles (ooh, yes we were back to miles- thank you, Northern Ireland!) down the road was the Giant’s Causeway. Over 40,000 geometrical basalt formations interlock to make up the causeway and it’s easy to see why the ancients believed it was man-made or at least giant-made…





The legend has it that the giant warrior, Finn McCool, built the causeway to be able to walk across the channel to challenge his Scottish foe. Seems like a reasonable explanation to me…



The place was really unbelievable and we took about 1 zillion photos, so be warned.

It started raining (sideways as it's apt to do in Ireland) while we were waiting on the bus to take us back up from the Causeway. It rained and rained and got pretty cold, which was awesome for the poor Wife’s cold.

We had a very early night that night and Sunday took the quintessential black taxi tour of West Belfast…




It was a very sobering tour. It was saddening to learn that although the IRA and UVF are no longer bombing each other over Irish independence/religious persecution, they seem to have each fractured into mafia type groups where drug selling shootings are now the cause of violence.

You’d never know it from touring the area in the daylight. Both the Catholic and Protestant areas seem like tidy little neighborhoods with families milling about, little shops and pubs. Well, tidy little neighborhoods with a giant wall separating them, memorial gardens for the thousands that have died and highly political murals everywhere you turn.

I couldn’t believe they still have to close the gates each evening, but I suppose the wounds are still pretty fresh for both sides. The air hangs a little heavier in West Belfast, but there is also a palpable sense of hope. Us at after signing the peace wall...



We asked our cabbie to take us down to the Titanic dry dock after the tour and we got to see the giant hole that used to hold the massive and doomed ship…



Our driver said that the “Irish built it and the English sank it”.

We were headed back to Dublin fairly early so we stopped off at Brù-na-Bòinne to see the Neolithic necropolis at Newgrange. It is about 500 years older than Stonehenge…





We got to go in the burial mound and although I’ve never had an issue with closed-in spaces my heart was racing and I felt like I had one of the 5 ton curbstones on my chest. I was one of the first ones out and was tempted to push the two old ladies in front of me out of my way. It was really weird how sick I felt. Maybe the souls of the ancients were happy about us tromping inside their resting place.

It was a nice weekend and I'm really glad we made the trip up to Northern Ireland. Everyone was still just as nice, although I had a much more difficult time understanding them. Wow, their accent is tough.

In what I hope to be the last depressing tour of the round, this weekend we’re going to Poland to visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz. whomp, whomp

into the west

We were lucky enough to have our own Irish tour guide this past weekend for our trip to the west of Ireland. Along with our Betty’s Town girl we also had our dear Venezuelan friend come in from Atlanta for 6 days. The entire team piled up in the two cars Friday and we made our way to Westport.

It was a bit of drive, but we got there in time to pop into Matt Malloy’s. This is apparently the most famous pub in Westport and from the size of the crowd packed inside I imagine the entire village was present.

Aside from the beautiful pints, the highlight of this place is the live music. They had a guy in the very back room playing pub tunes and top 40, but in what probably used to be the original back room there were about 6 or 7 people sitting around a circular booth playing traditional Irish folk music. It was deliciously intimate and purely Irish. I think it was even more special for me and the Wife being from the South since this music is at the very root of bluegrass and country.

Actually, Ireland feels like going home to me in so many ways. Aside from actual genetic connections to this country (most of us have them, I know I do on my maternal side) I really think any true Southerner would have to be blind not to see how much this culture shaped our own. The food, the music, the hospitality, the storytelling…it’s like visiting a distant relative. You don’t really know each other, but you can’t deny the connection or familiarity.

Saturday we made our way through the tiny winding roads to Galway. As with any good road trip, it was more about the journey than the destination. We stopped off at beaches, bogs, rolling green hills, waterfalls, lochs, tower houses, an abbey, a Celtic graveyard, had lunch at the foot of Crough Patrick and dinner in a little village by the ocean…












Sunday was all about getting to the Cliffs of Moher. The weather had pretty much held out for us all weekend, until of course we got to the cliffs. It was rainy and windy, but it would take more than that to dull the beauty of these dramatic cliffs…




Our last stop was a tomb dating back 5800 years which was much smaller than the photo makes it looks. It was a miracle we even found it out in the middle of nowhere…




All in all it was a lovely weekend spent with lovely people and surrounded by the all the loveliness of Ireland. Thanks so much, Razel for showing us your country!! We all fell in love!

This weekend we’re headed to Northern Ireland to take a tour of Belfast and see the Giant's Causeway.