Breathe In: More Roadtripping

January 30

We got up as scheduled today at 6:30 am. I made oatmeal as Wes and Ian packed the tent. We may have been on a tiny plot of a really crowded tenting area, but we were really camping already! We actually rolled out of camp before the main office even opened, but someone was already there and we were able to check out.

Today the road took us through probably the hilliest region I've seen in my life. We even passed a road sign urging us to be patient through the very windy road ahead. Ian commented on how the road signs are as polite as the people here: there are far more yield signs than stop signs, the speed limit is frequently higher than we actually want to go, and official road signs tell us to be patient and not drive if we're tired.

Our first destination was the Waitamo Caves, though the official tours were $40-$100, so we just did one of the trails outside. The cave we circumvented was magnificent: a roaring river charged in and out of it and left a gaping tunnel through the rock. The “swing bridge” was disappointing—it turned out not to be a swing bridge at all, but a run-of-the-mill fixed bridge, totally contrary to the map at the head of the trail.

In a tiny side cave we found him

Next we stopped at New Plymouth and followed a very short walk through the woods. On the way we passed a mountain bike rally and cricket practice. It was funny to see hardcore athletes taking very seriously a game that is so foreign to us. When we again reached the coast, we got out of the car and hopped tide pools almost all the way to the ocean. The motion of jumping from rock to rock in quick succession had me hooked, and I imagined what it would be like if there were such a thing as competitive rock running.

We're spending the night at a nice lodge by Dawson Falls and Mount Egmont. We hiked down to the falls and I managed to get the Zach, Ian, and Wes to indulge my rock hopping for a while. As I discovered in Canada, one of my favorite things to do in a forest is to follow streams (either up or down) by hopping on rocks in the stream itself. I only fell down once this time, which is a big improvement from Canada, and I had a blast.