Underground Galaxy

 

**Disclaimer: These are not our photos. We were not allowed to take a camera due to safety concerns (apparently selfies are a dangerous thing), so all images are from a Google image search. Don't judge me.**

Clad in a heavy duty wet suit, clunky rubber boots, and a spelunking helmet with headlamp, holding an inner tube to my backside I stand poised. Our tour guide has her hand on my shoulder, her right foot readied to sweep my feet out from under me. This is no way to jump off a waterfall. Especially in a cave, in the dark, into frigid river water.

But this is what we’re paying for. Well that and a silent, floating grand finale through awe-inspiring beauty.

I first visited New Zealand during high school. In hindsight, as an adult, traveling abroad with 30-someodd 17- and 18-year-olds sounds like a chaperone’s nightmare. Putting on my adult pants again, I can state with certainty that I did not appreciate the experience half as much as I should have. Teenagers are like that, I suppose. One of the things that did stick with me, through the quagmire of teenage drama that overwhelmed the entire trip, was the absolute, jaw-dropping beauty of the North Island’s glowworm caves.

Returning to New Zealand, I insisted that this be included on our list of activities for the trip. Not one to repeat experiences entirely, and based on the recommendations of numerous friends, we went the action adventure route to exploring Waitomo Caves. This meant doing something called Black Water Rafting. The name is a misnomer of sorts. The activity itself is more like underground cave river tubing, but I guess that’s a less catchy name.

Once again I have to say a little thank you to the humans who invented wet suits. Silly though we may have looked (we looked absurd, sorry for the lack of pictures of us specifically), with the exception of paddling with bare hands, the icy water that would sneak up sleeves, and the handful of backward leaps off waterfalls the sent us plunging and bobbing momentarily, we stayed relatively warm.

Despite learning that the “glowworms” are actually just fly larvae trying to catch a meal in the dark using bioluminescence, despite the cold water and the clumsy scrambling and occasional missteps involved in making our way through the caves, when the group of us daisy chained together and turned off our headlamps, none of it mattered.

An entire group of people struck speechless by beauty is a phenomenal thing. Floating silently through the caves was liked drifting downstream under a clear night’s sky in the high mountains, Milky Way poured out before you. Only in this case, it’s much closer, a tiny galaxy of blue-tinged stars almost within reach.

I understand why we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Not only are there no pictures that do the experience justice, but I don’t think we could reasonably have taken pictures in such an awe-struck state and also paid any attention to what we were doing as we made our way through the caves. 

Swimming with Seals

If dogs are man’s best friend, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call seals merman’s best friend. Seals, much like dogs, are remarkably playful and inquisitive but can also be highly territorial. The fact that seals are pretty cute and make weird bark-like noises doesn’t hurt the comparison either.

Kaikoura, on the South Island’s northeast coast, is a highly touristic stopping point. Chockful of hotels, hostels, b&bs, and tourist parks (an assortment of hotel rooms, cabins, RV hookups, and camping spots), this is a town famed for sea kayaking, whale watching, and dolphin swimming. We, however, went for the swimming with seals excursion.

Absolutely clumsy on land as they use their strange flippers to haul and hobble themselves across rocky outcroppings, seals are graceful as ballet dancers in the water. They spin, dive, and twirl by, investigating these odd flippered and masked creatures who join them in the water.

The water was cold and choppy, the wind high, and frigid water kept leaking into the arm and neck holes of the wet suits we were (luckily) wearing. But, swimming alongside a seal as it cruised through the water was absolutely worth the discomfort. And Win really went for it, making Olympia laps with a couple of seals who seemed to enjoy his company. 

Shaken

In February 2011, Christchurch was struck by an earthquake that registered a 6.3 on the Richter scale. Centered just 10 kilometers outside the city center, the earthquake and its aftershocks left the city badly damaged, with 185 dead. At the time, Christchurch was the second most populous city in New Zealand.

Visiting Win’s family friend in 2016, it was amazing to see the CBD (Kiwi for central business district) still full of empty lots. Patched here and there with intense construction, efforts to save historic buildings, and invisible bureaucratic red tape, the city is still in partial disarray five years later. Outside the city center, many suburbs were completely red-zoned, with vast acres that were once filled with cookie-cutter subdivisions being gradually reclaimed by flora and fauna.

And in the midst of it all, endless examples of the triumph of the human spirit and the artistic response to tragedy are on display. From the transitionary church (known as the Cardboard Church) to the pop-up shipping container mall to the sprawling street art, Christchurch has equal parts physical and emotion construction underway. 

Sydney: The Layover

It would be easy to assume that we travel because one or the both of us has some source of wealth that is unique and different from other people in our age bracket. Frankly, that would be lovely, but simply isn’t the case. The travel we do is funded primarily by shifting priorities and figuring out how to make the most out of what money we do have at our disposal. To put it simply, we are incredibly cheap.

Getting to Win’s sixth continent (it was on his bucket list to do before 30) posed a unique issue in that regard. Namely, while working fulltime jobs and doing fulltime grad classes, how does one justify the airfare to fly to New Zealand for two weeks between semesters? We tackled that one by taking advantage of some of the air mile hacks through various airlines and credit cards to bring the cost down to just $75 roundtrip for Win and $550 roundtrip for myself. (This was a 6-month endeavor that required planning, research, solid credit scores, and lots of dedicated effort.)

Once we had our air miles, we found that there was just one ticket option available for all of December and January from Albuquerque to Australia or New Zealand. We would arrive the morning of New Year’s Eve in Sydney, home to one of the world’s best New Year’s Eve celebrations, and have roughly 24 hours before our flight to New Zealand. 

Now, I know what I said about us being cheap and the great lengths we go to in order to afford our travel. The number of stories that include, well we did X absurdly uncomfortable and strange thing, but it only cost $Y is, well, probably roughly equivalent to the number of stories we have to tell. However, in all our travels I have come to appreciate that there’s the time and place for the right kind of splurge. (Note the “I” in that sentence; I am the one who pushes for splurge experiences. I embrace this.)

Given the fortuitous nature of the timing of our 24-hour layover, we obviously needed to find some NYE celebration in which to partake. Rather than getting off the plane and having to fight the masses for free seating, some of which start to fill up around 6 am, we opted to spend some money. And if you’re gonna spend it, why not do it right?

We booked a cheap(ish) hotel room out in the suburbs and near little Korea, but went all out for the fireworks. And I have to say it was worth spending 400 AUD (roughly $280 US) to be harbor-side at the Botanical Gardens with a three course meal and a fantastic view of the bridge, Opera House, and both fireworks shows.

Most things are worth bargaining, haggling, and bartering over, but some things are once-in-a-lifetime experiences that are worth working into the budget.