Drove from Rotorua (thermal wonderland yada yada yada) to Waitomo (caves with glow-worms) today. Saw the oddest thing on the way - rabbit shearing. I kid you not, they grab the poor bunny, tie it up by its four little legs and strrrretch it out for shearing. Apparently the fuzzballs don't get hurt in this endeavour, but still, the poor little mite (Minnie in this case) looked like it was majorly hyperventilating. Could of course also be that it was hot (it was 32C and the bunny is wearing what makes the equivalent of a human XL Angora sweater) - that's the story the proprietors told us anyway! 
I elected to do an activity when we arrived - Quadbiking through the hills and valleys around the caves. Quite possibly the most awesome activity I have EVER done. Beats Skydiving for value for money (quad lasts 2 hours, skydive about 40 seconds), surfing because I didn't get knocked in the schnozz by the bike, sledging because NO ONE SHOULD SLEDGE...ever... :)
Luckily, everyone else was boring and stayed at the hostel to start getting drunk (ok, their rafting was moved to the morning and there was nothing else to do... but still...) So it was just myself, a German girl from another tour company, and the guide (4th generation original Waitomo citizen). We got overalls, gumboots, a helmet and a 2-minute explanation of the quadbike and off we went! Those things are FAST! At first we went slowly up and down craggy hills and rocky paths, but soon got comfortable and were zooming up and down hills, chasing sheep! I even saw 2 wild boars... I have the pictures to prove it - if you squint the two brown blobs do look like boars! I'll upload something as soon as I get to a normal PC somewhere.
The best thing was being told to go into fourth gear and gun it down a hillside in order to make it up the other side. What he didn't say was that it was basically another massively steep slope on the other side... I made AIR! My bum left the seat, the quad floated and I was laughing my head off. Unlike sledging, I was positive I wouldn't be dying that day! Or maybe I'm just getting used to the dangerous activities on offer everywhere :) Big Red Quadbikes in Waitomo - if you ever make it here, forget about the black-water rafting and just head for the hills!
No comments:
Post a Comment