I almost died today. Seriously! So this semitruck decided to not check his mirrors while getting on to the highway, and even though David moved to the fastlane, he decided to move to the fastlane too. He eventually sandwiched us right in against the concrete barrier, so David had to slam on the brakes. He still took out our sideview mirror and left a whole bunch of paint damage along the side of the car, and then didn't even realize that he had hit us! Keep in mind this is all going on at arounfd 90 km/hr or so. So yah that's the exciting story for the day!
On Sunday we had teh family BBQ, and it was really cool to see all my Dad's cousins who I'd never met before. They were all really nice and we all ate a great amount of food (think steak... lots of it) and by the end of the day everyone was quite content. I finally managed to fix up Alyth's computer, but with the 56k bandwidth it was quite a chore! The next day Alyth dropped me off outside of Waihi around 8:30, and I was quickly picked up by this radio jockey guy named Dave who was going straight to Tauranga. Coincidently he did teh morning show in Blenheim for the last six months and then gave me hsi info and the info of a sailer down in Blenheim for when I get down there (who also happens to make great moonshine.) By the way, it's legal in New Zealand to make your own moonshine, and they also sell over the counter party drugs that contain PCP and all sorts of other stuff. Anyway, I got into Tauranga, climbed Mount Monganui(sp) and then hung out on teh beach the rest of teh day before going to David and Kay's.
Moving on, the last couple of days I spent at David and Kay's which is just outside of Taraunga in a little place called Te Puna. They have a bunch of avacado trees and were planting more, so I helped out on tuesday with some tree planting and stuff like that; it was really nice to do some work again! The afternoon I spent whizing around on a little 250 cc Suzuki motorbike, which is something I've never done before. It's quite a challenge, shifting with your feet and braking and accelerating with your hands! I didn't fall off (which I thought was quite impressive) and even managed to go 40 km/hr!
Today, (after the semi incident) I managed to get to Rotorua after hitching with 4 different people. One was a Maori lady who took me all around the maori village and told me all about the culture, and then dropped me off about 1km farther along the road I was originally on... The next lady gave me teh number of her daughter in Rotorua, but I was onyl with her for about 3 minutes in teh car so I didn't feel to comfortable calling in. The next guy was Indian and hardly spoke any English. I got understand Canada.. and that was about it. It was a little awkward but at least it got me down the road! The next guy picked me up at the gas station (best spot to hitch by the way) and was really cool and gave me his card and we had a great time conversing on the trip down. Once I got here I just chilled around town taking some pictures of the boiling mud and what not, and then it was now!
Tomorrow I am planning on going white water rafting as well as maybe zorbing (rolling down the hill in a huge ball... crazy kiwis.) Then it's off to Charles' on Friday ( I think) for a little caving action and maybe black water rafting!