Take a walk on the wild side...

Hello Friends, Family, and Colleagues!

Sorry it has taken us a couple days to update our blog! We have been really busy exploring the city and rural parts of Auckland. Let's go back to Saturday! Saturday morning began bright and early in the morning and with a little bit of nerves. Jen was going to embark on driving in Auckland to get to our Rainforest Express Tour located deep in the heart of the Waitakere Ranges. There is no public transportation to this location and if you didn't already know, New Zealanders drive on the opposite side of the road in the opposite side of the car! Bravely, we walked to the Budget car rental location nearest us to pick up our beautiful, white Toyota Corolla. We had the man operating the desk at Budget look over our Google map directions and made the smart decision to rent a GPS for use during the journey. As we get into the car (already a little nervous, but putting on brave, confident faces) we set up our GPS, entered the address, and off we went! To make a long story short, we drove through three round-abouts, speed down the motorway, took a winding rural road, and drove down a long gravel driveway and successfully arrived at our destination! Phew! One driving experience down, one more to go!

The Rainforest Express Tour was awesome. The journey began at Jacobson's Depot and took us on a small train through the rainforest. Our guides, Ian and Fenton, were gracious hosts and explained to us the inner workings of Auckland's water and tunnel systems, dam, and pointed out some wetas and glowworms during our journey! We had to remember to keep all limbs in the train system and not to touch any of the plants, as some were poisonous. We also hiked up the side of a dam, took pictures of breath-taking views, and stopped for lunch in a shelter set up in the forest. What a great experience. Then, it was back in the car for our journey home! We got a little lost on our way there as the GPS kept telling us, "turn right and then turn right." This confused us and we can laugh about it now, but it was a little tense during the journey. When we finally got back to the Budget and took some celebratory pictures with the car the man at the counter asked Jen if she would drive across the street to fill the car up with petrol. She then replied, "You want me to drive across the street..." It just so happened though, that when he checked the fuel levels of the car it showed it was full, so not more driving was needed! Yay!

After a short rest at our hotel room we headed to the train for Mt. Smart Stadium and a New Zealand Warriors rugby game! The train ride was easy to navigate and reminded us of the Red Line train to Cubs/Sox parks in Chicago. Lots of Warriors fans were on the train with us who helped us locate the stadium when we exited the train. Neither of us no much about Rugby, but we learned a lot by watching and talking with our friendly seat mates. Here is what we learned: when a man is down you keep on playing, pass it under, punching is allowed only when the referee doesn't see it (our seat mates let us know that one), rugby league is different from rugby, and Melbourne Storm players (the opposing team that night) are overpaid. We had lots of fun and are excited to share this sport with our students!

On to today, which happens to be Sunday. We woke up very, very early to catch a chartered bus to the Waitomo Caves. The journey was long - it took three hours to get there. On the way to the caves, our driver, Collin, talked about the history of New Zealand and the views our of our bus window. We took lots of fantastic pictures of New Zealand's beautiful landscape! When we arrived we walked into a cave and learned about stalactites and stalagmites. We walked the cave with a large group. When we got to an open part of the cave, our guide talked about the great acoustics and asked if anyone would volunteer to sing. Jen did and sang an Italian aria in the cave! Our journey through the caves ended with a boat ride through the glowworm grotto. The glowworms were small and bright blue. We learned that they glow during the larvae stage in order to attract their food. They stay at this stage for nine months and then they turn into the pupa, where they stay for two weeks. When they emerge from the pupa they only live for 48 hours! The students will really enjoy learning about the life cycle of the glowworms and we got great pamphlets and books to help our students acquire this knowledge!

We got back on the bus back to Auckland and stopped an had a brief lunch at Little Apple Cafe. The cafe was beautiful and was surrounded by amazing scenery. We ate a great lunch and topped it off with some Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, a New Zealand favorite!

What a full, two-day adventure!