Rotarua!

So last weekend was a sponsored trip by BU. We drove south from Auckland to Rotarua from Friday to Sunday. Friday we went zorbing. Zorbing is basically going inside a giant blown up gerbil ball with another human being and a little bit of water, and then being pushed haphazardly down a huge hill. Sufice to say it was ausome! I went withe a girl from my grou pnamed Deanna, and we tumbled on top of eachother all the way dodwn the hill unitl we emerged drenched and disoriented. We then stopped in the town of rotarua, where you instantly notice the appealing smell of rotten eggs, due to the high level of geothermal activity in this area. It is also called little vegas, but no one has any idea why, since there is absolutly no resemblence to Vegas. After lunch we went lugging, which is basically riding a go cart down an cement track on a mountain. I have learned my lesson about going to fast on these things back when I was little on a an alpine slide in Breckenridge Colorado, so I was carefull and for once did not get hurt (unlike many other people). By the time we wer done we tookt he gondola down the mountain, and watched hte sunset. That night we had a huge BBQ and a night hike, where we played many competitons on the beach. I am proud to say I won the crab race/ wheel barrell race.

The next day I woke up early to go kayaking on the lake. It was Abby, my roomate's, first time kayaking so it was very exciting. We procedde to go to Rotarua's thermal wonderland, whihc includes many boiling mud patches, sulfuric ditches, and geothermal lakes. We then proceded to a volcano where we climbed into jeeps that drove us most of the way up the volcano. We then followed a guide along hte edge of the huge voilcanic crator, raced down into the crator, and climbed out again. The crator was huge, and impossible to capture the magnitude on camera. On the way back to our campsites, we stopped at a geothermal pool, where a small hot spring ran into a larger river making natural hotsprings. It was incredibly relaxing. We had a quite night of BBQ and played cards.

The next day we woke up early, and drove over tot a a white water rafting company. The river we rafted upon claims to have the highest comercially ran waterfall in the world. The rafting was incredibly fun. We even jumped out and swam for a little bit! And that was the end of our advenutres of the wekend.