TravelingWebGuy

Where's that Sauna....

Finished the shower, got some dinner, met some of the others staying at the hostel. Told them I was about to go in the Sauna for a bit and a few of them said they would join me. So we went in our separate ways to get the proper gear and then met up on the way down. We probably spent about 30 minutes in there with a few breaks in between just because those rooms get so damn hot and it was pretty cool outside so all we did was crack the door open for a few minutes and let some steam out, some cool air in, and we were all good. But like I said, 30 minutes was all that we could muster out of ourselves so after that we hoped out and called it a night for that. But while we were in there, we talked about some rope swing that was at the hostel and the glow worms that were around the area. So we all agreed that we were going to go on a mission to find both!

After about 10 minutes we were all outside again and on our way around the hostel to see if we could find these fabled glow worms and of course the rope swing! As we started to head up a road that was all but pitch black, I decided to ruin everyone’s night vision and turn on my snake light. Not sure why they call it a snake light because this thing is like a damn spotlight, it’s bright as hell! So we made our way up the road and as I was looking about the light was also going wherever my head was – it was one of those head lamps. I caught a glimpse of something foreign to the natural vegetation in the area and stopped the light up in the tree canopy. Sure enough what I saw was a rope following the tree tops and as I followed it, I saw some tires hung up near what looked like the end of the swing. So naturally I follow the rope in the other direction and see that it goes up another hill for a few hundred feet. We walk in that direction and soon see a platform and the actual ’slide’ bit pinched to it.

None of us actually knowing how to ride this thing we take a look at it and try to figure out how exactly this works. The rope is like one of those zip-lines you see strung across Rain Forests where people use it to glide from one tree to another. Hanging from it was another rope with a few nights tied towards the middle, obviously for grip, and then a large knot on the bottom where I guessed we put our feet on. So after we pretty much figured it out, we all just kind of looked at each other silently asking who was going to go first… after all, it was pitch black, and there were no lights for the swing. After a few awkward moments of silence I said I’d give it a go and hoped on the platform. I grabbed the rope, gave it  a good tug to test it’s strength, gave the others a here we go look and jumped…

Mission Successful!

I put my feet on the large knot on the bottom and held on tight to the middle knot for the hands. The line was headed downhill so with my weight and the force of the slope, it was picking up speed every second. You could hear the line making it’s way down the rope and the faster I went, the higher the whine of the zip line. NatuRally I thought I was flying down the line because it seemed as if the noise was getting louder and louder and I could feel the wind hitting my face more rapidly.  Not knowing when it would stop and then suddenly realizing that when at the top,  I didn’t really think about it, I got a little tense and gripped the rope for dear life, just in case something crazy happened.  After about 30 seconds it seemed like we picked up to speed and then all of the sudden “thwack” “thwack” “thwack” “BOOM” and the swing swung upwards towards the sky and here I am seeing stars… literally the sky… and stopped with a sudden jolt! I turned my snake light on and saw what I had actually hit were the tires I had previously seen on the way up. Ahhh… the brake system! Well that makes sense now but I’m still the moron for not thinking about how to stop before I jumped on the thing. A few second later I heard the others in the group asking if I was OK and after I confirmed, I jumped off the rope and began to walk it back up the hill.

We all gave it a few whirls and had a good time!

Hanging from some bushes

After we did this we were walking back towards the hostel and without even looking for them, one of the girls saw something to her left. We all looked but didn’t see anything. She told me to kill my light, I did, and then we saw it! Glow worms were all around the bushes! It was really quite something! I had seen them when I was in the Waitomo Caves, but seeing them outside was a cool site as well! And the cool thing, here we could take pictures where in the Caves we were not allowed.

All in all it was a good night and myself and the others I was with enjoyed ourselves. I did a lot on this day and had to split up the blogs into two separate posts because the first one was just to long and I didn’t want some scrolling nightmare for a posts. So if you didn’t catch up about my afternoon adventure with my surf lessons, then check out the post before this.

The next adventure on it’s way!