Egg is in the air!

We've made it as far as Rotorua, so that means as far as NewZealands concerned there's only 3 stops left! Blimey how time flys!
Rotorua, on first impression, was not my cup of tea (ok, slight understatement). Admittedly it probably didn't help that I was in a ridiculously foul mood. My nights sleep was, well...the term "my nights sleep" is probably far too strong a term to use for the amount of rest I actually received. Jake decided to tap away on his laptop on the bunk below me until the wee hours of the morning, and then the two girls we shared the dorm with got up at the slightly less wee hours of the morning, packed their things and went on their way. This is not usually a problem. Staying in hostels has made me an even heavier sleeper than I was before! Seriously, a 4.9 earthquake hit Christchurch the night we slept there and I half woke up, assumed somebody had lost their balance and used the wall of our room to regain their balance and that was what had made it tilt (don't ask! My reasoning when I'm tired is beyond me!) and then I just drifted back off to sleep! But these two girls were the noisiest people in the history of the world! It wasn't the rustling of bags, nor the sporadic chatter that woke me up, it was the CONSTANT SLAMMING OF THE DORM ROOM DOOR! Considering mine and Jake's bunk was right next to the door you would have thought they would at least try to gently close it, but no. They opened it full and let go each time, leaving gravity to do it's work. By the fifth time I'd given up sleeping through it and just watched the door open, hesitate for a second, gather speed and theeeeeeeeeeen BANG! It was closed again, just in time for the other girl to come in from brushing her teeth. The door hesitates, gathers speed and sure enooooooough BANG!!! I very nearly turned to one of them exclaiming "Do you mind!?". Again don't ask why I thought at 5 in the morning this was a suitable way to tell someone off for being inconsiderate to an extent I've never encountered before. As I before mentioned, my reasoning when I'm tired is beyond me. 
And so, back to my original point, I arrived in Rotorua sleep deprived and with a head that hurt with the effort of trying to comprehend how two people, who I'm sure are very reasonable human beings most of the time, could be so, just, GRRRR! I was also hungry. And if you know me at all you will know when I'm tired I overcompensate for the lack of energy gained through sleep with energy gained through food.  So at around 2, having had no breakfast, no lunch and very little sleep we're walking along a beach when I notice a steaming pile of poop on the sand. I apprehended the pile of dung with more interest than I usually would. Something didn't seem right, although I couldn't put my finger on it...Oh, that's right, neatly stacked next to the pile of "do-do" was a bundle of used toilet tissues! And no, dogs in NewZealand don't wipe their bums. YOU do the maths! I shook this image from my head and kept walking. For some reason there where seagull carcusses dotted along our path. Don't get me wrong, growing up on a seaside town has hardly made me fond of these particular birds but none the less it doesn't mean I want to see their splattered mushy parts whilst out on a leisurely stroll. What was probably the last straw though, was losing my flipflop in a great big puddle of goo. Don't ask me what it was, because I don't know, but under a thin layer of sand sat a gloopy mass of rotting vegetation (at a guess), waiting for some poor, innocent sleepdeprived backpacker to sink her bare ankles into the gloop. I fell asleep last night thinking I couldn't wait to get away from here. 
This morning however we went to a thermal park, by the name of Wai-O-Tapu (this means sacred water in Maori). The smell of egg increased rapidly as we got closer (that always makes it harder to get to like a place, when it smells like egg, and thoughts like "I bet hundreds of people are seizing opportunitys to relieve themselves here, as it would hardly be noticed if you know what I mean" intermitedly cross your mind). However, within ten minutes I managed to forgive Rotorua of all her pooeyness and rotting birdness.
A Geyser goes off. Wooooosh! And a spray of water towers over me (and even Jake!) at about 15 meters, bringing down a smattering of faux rain. It turns from over 100 degrees C to just above cold in the time it takes to reach me from the underground resevoir. We were both greatful for it, today being one of the hottest we've had. The glob glob of bubbling mud pools surrounds us, like thick soup on a stove just starting to warm through (although Emma, it has to be said your home made soup smells considerably better than the mud pools did). There's something toad like in the way they glob. I'm not quite sure what. I think it's the way the toads throat slowly expands and then suddenly flattens again, soon after the awaited ribbit. The mud expands, tension builds and theeeen, blob, it's like nothing ever happened. One pool was quite literally green. Not mossy green, but pea green. If the owl and the pussycat parked their boat in said pool it would have blended in perfectly (and probably have been dissolved by the cobination of heat and sulphur). My favourite bit however was a shallow pool that sretched into the distance and out of view ("out of view" wasn't neccessaraly very far away, the amount of steam coming from the pool seriously limited how far you could see, but the effect was that of an endless mass of water...it was a good effect.) The rock at the waters edge was vibrant red, and stretched until it was about a meter in. From there on the water was a bright blue and green, with the odd pool of yellow, like someone had tipped in a tub of mustard power. It was completely alien. The pines in the background (planted by convincts apparantly) was the only image keeping the scene before me real. If it weren't for that I could have been on an alien planted for all I new.
Despite it's eggyness it was a thing of beauty!

So my overview on Rotorua so far is that it's ultimately, hugely different from every other place we've been. It's beautiful, but not in the rolling hills and clear lakes I've become accustomed to in NewZealand...and my nose is becoming slowly accustomed to the eggy smell.
All my love, Beth :)
xxx

Pants!

Today I ran out of pants.
Today, for the first time sinse leaving home, my travelling provisions have run short.
So now I am lieing in bed, at about lunch time, because I refuse to start going about my daily business without a pair of clean underwear on. All I can do is wait for my wash to finish. So I FINALLY have time to update the blog!
It seems that unfortunately the pattern is the more I have to write about, the less time I have to write about it, so, due to the long gap in my blogging activity you can pretty much guarantee this one's gunna be a biggin! So I suggest if you need to use the toilet you go now, and you may want to get a cup of tea aswell (as I'm aware my posts are so engrossing that once you start reading it may be hard to pull away!)
I'm going to begin with two major life accomplishments. Firstly, throwing myself head first off a 135 meter drop. Secondly, winning my first hand to hand combat with a mosquito. The bunjy jump was insane, in fact I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I'm going to give it a go.
Step 1: Being strapped into the harness. At this point the feeling just a whole lot of macho "COMMOOOOOON!!!" as the adrenaline and (I'm pretty sure) testosterone starts to pump through your veins. I never felt so manly, and I wouldn't be surprised if I was very close to sprouting chest hair.
Step 2: The "Waddle of doom"! Due to the style of the jump the bungy chord goes around your ankles so you dive headfirst. This means you don't get to do a running jump or anything. You get to waddle helplessly to the edge, and stare down into the abys your about to plunge yourself into. At this point the testosterone runs to hide and the adrenaline starts to run in overload. The knees are shaking and the sensible part of your brain starts to really regret the choice you've made.
Step 3: The first few seconds of the jump. This is all a bit of a blur to be honest. You push yourself off the platform and even before you start falling, just as you hit the off balance point where there's no return you get this awful feeling of dread. "What have you DONE!?". At that point my reasoning which went something along the lines of your fine, it's safe, they wouldn't let you jump if you would be hurt, gets drowned out by billions of years of evolution. My whole body started wriggling and there was no way  I could control it. It was like every limb was determined not to die, and thought if it wriggled ridiculously enough and embarassingly enough it may just about begin to fly. All the other guys who did it before me just drifted down, still and unmoving, where as I flapped about like a dancing fish. I've decided that this means all the other people doing the jump are quitters, as their bodies had already accepted their fate, where as I'm a fighter and wasn't going down so easily!!! Either that or I'm just not half as solid as everyone else who jumped...I'm sticking with theory number 1.
Step 4: The adrenaline subsides enough for you to remember that you are safe and you really get a chance to enjoy it. The rush is incredible and your bobbing upside down in some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
Step 5: Gettin wrinched up and having everyone point out, with photographic proof, how you had been squirming around like an idiot for the entirity of the fall.
Few! Now try and imagine all these things happening within the space of about 20/30 seconds. By the time your back on the platform there's just a very sereel fealing of, what in the world just happened?!

On to my second acheivement. The death of the mosquito! This may not seem like a big deal to many, but you have to understand that I was one of those children who couldn't stand it when animals died. I would tell my little brother off for needlessly pulling mussels off the rocks down the beach, and go crazy at the boys in my reception class who thought it funny to pull worms in half! But I'm afraid after weeks of being mauled by mosquitos and savaged by sandflies my heart has turned bitter and cruel, and the innocence that once subsided there is now gone. (I should have mentioned before beggingin this section that this is a very dark tale). So I'm in the shower at out new hostel (which serves hot chocolate pudding every evening at 8!!!) when I hear a buzzing. I stop ridding myself of the days grime and stick my head out the shower curtain, and there, shore enough, cocky as ever is the spindly legged fiend perched vertically on the wall. I quickly decide on stealth. My arm reaches down to the floor, feels around for my trusty flip flop and within 2 seconds BAM! The mosquito now looks like a veiny pattern imprinted into the wallpaper. I grin smuggly, finish showering and step out. As i begging donning my oh so snazzy spotty pajama bottoms I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. It was coming back to life! Slowly pushing itself off the wall, one spindly little leg at a time, like a bouncy castle being inflated. I completely freak out. Undead mosquitos with a taste for vengence! No thankyou! I go ninja style on it, smash it a couple more times with my flip flop and dash out of the cubicle. I was very proud of myself...
Jakes just walked in, having had a shower and asks me
"Did you use the outdoors shower?"
"Yeh"
"The one by the giant chess set"
"Yup"
"Is the mosquito about this big?" He holds out his thumb and index finger.
"Sure was" (at this point I think he's about to say it's still there, smooshed against the wall, in a proud sort of "You sure got him good" way)
..."Thats a daddy long legs"
So after my epic tale it turns out I just killed a innocent, unintelligent creature that was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could go back and delete the whole story, but I'm not going to. Mwahahah :).
We've been through Christchurch, up to Lake Tekapo, through Queenstown past the pancake rocks, along to nelson and now in Picton! I'm afraid I've misse out an awful lot! Bu I'll try very hard to write again later. I haven't eaten yet today and Jake's just brought me an avacado. NomNom!
Xxx