Happy new Year !

Welcome to 2006

the

(R)Evolution!

Life is a journey: make sure u have the right ticket!

Postato da: grecofla alle 14:41 | link | comments |

Here we go, boxing day: the long digestion after the Christmas feast and the official start of the winter ( or summer, depending where u are) sales....the recipe for a quiet thrilling day .

But le me give you some details about our cave adventure: after a 2,5h drive from Auckland we arrived in Waitomo a beautiful landscape of green hills that hides around 900 caves underground (as the guide says....). We picked the cheapest tour ( I know, but hey we r unemployed after all...) http://www.waitomo.co.nz/tumutumu.html.

There are about 12 of us with 2 local guides. After a short drive we get to the "departure gate", where we get out gear: helmet with light, full body wet suit and gum boots....I don't know why but at this stage I have the slight feeling that we are going to get wet....(my usual acute 6th sense!). To top my intuition the guide says: " guys since it has been raining last nite, and still is, the cave is flooded, so get ready ....", damn what happened to the luck of the Irish?

Well we then head underground....pitch black, withouth the lights it would be a nightmare....the water is freezing cold and running fast....Inside on the top we can see the famous glow worms, it looks like a sky filled with stars..pretty cool...

The tour, around 2 hours, run pretty smoothly, between rock formations, mud and obviuosly liters of water. At one stage the guide decided to direct us through a pretty small path, but after I got stuck there trying to get through the rocks for few minutes (, first my helmet was stuck between 2 rocks, then it was the turn of my wet suit....and I thought I lost weight...) he smartely said to the rest of the group to go around....We then had to go underwater and flow with the current ( a so called pin ball, I wonder why....), at the end we were pretty damn cold and tired.....definately getting old.....A MUST DO!

Afterwards we headed to the Coromandel peninsula. We stayed in Waihi, in a hotel with pub, betting shop, restaurant, etc...basically the town money sucker ! On the way a sign struck me: " Please return my bike, ph 0000", straight and open communication....

The waether wasn't very nice, windy and with heavy showers every 15 minutes, so we quickly drove around the peninsula and we went back to Auckland.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Postato da: grecofla alle 01:10 | link | comments (2) |

And here we go, one week to Christmas....amazing.

As they say, it only seems yesterday when I was doing whatever I was doing one year ago...., definately I was not thinking about being on the other side of the world soaking in the sun.....

To tell you the truth it's pretty hard to sink in the Christmas mood when everybody around you ( and you as well, since u don't wanna look weird with the woolly jumper that grandma made for you) are wearing t-shirts, shorts and sandals, and it's damn bright from early in the morning until 9 pm.  Christmas, for all the people from the northern emisphere and, as all the movies show us, it's made by cold weather, possibly snow, dark afternoons, christmas lights.... We are definately in another world, but we don't complain !

 

The common thing is the Christmas shopping, even here the race for the gifts is fierce with ads with heavy  discounts all over town....The consumer animal has reached all the corners of the Globe...

In the meanwhile in town some blokes decided to have some fun : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360490

I'll keep you posted in our attempt this week to approach Christmas day in a traditional way....for now we only planned a tour to www.waitomo.co.nz

 

PS: today is pissing rain....so don't envy us 2 much!

 

 

Postato da: grecofla alle 22:00 | link | comments (1) |

www. flick r .com

This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Flavio&Ken RTW. Make your own badge here.