Archive South Pacific- HONGI
  • Wow, what a week! These have truly been the quickest 5 days so far! We started by meeting Tran, the most awesome dude in the universe, at a hostel in New Plymouth. He drove us to a cottage on the outskirts of the city with the most amazing view of Mt. Taranaki where we slept, cooked our own food and played games (night crawlers). Tran broke the ice by taking us to a thrift store and told us to buy whatever we wanted. The only thing we knew is that we might want to burn them after. We didn’t really coordinate our outfits. Some people wanted to do Oceans 11, a few others Lord of the Rings. I myself had a pretty sweet hobbit getup. We stopped for the New Zealand famous hokey pokey ice cream and drove around the city until we got to a mud bog. We had no idea what we were doing there until Tran came out of the van with a mini skirt and straight up dove into the the mud pit! We had a pretty sweet time basically playing full tackle football. We all left as muddy as could be, and I’m pretty sure Olivia still has mud in her hair. 
     
    The whole week has been about pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone, so Tran never told us what we were doing until we were doing it. Every day we’ve come closer and closer together, and I realize this on days like these where we have to work together for the benefit of the group. Coming to New Zealand we all had preconceptions of what we’d be doing. Whether that’d be Hiking, Canoeing or abseiling I think we’ve done it all this week. My personal favorite day was when we went boating. We went tubing and did something I’ve never heard of before called Scurfing, which is basically surfing behind a boat. It was a difficult task that only a few of us could do, and I think we’re all proud of Rage for sticking with it after a few dozen face plants. We also went on a pretty gnarly hike that I honestly did not think myself or the rest of the group would be capable of. We all made it to the peak, even Liz despite her acrophobia. 
     
    As amazing as this week has been we’ve had to say our goodbyes to Tran the Man. We had a closing bonfire last night at a beautiful black sand beach. As the sun was setting we even got a look at a green flash, a once in lifetime experience. Many of us have overcome fears, like Annie’s fear of the rope swing or Olivia’s fear of Abseiling. This has been a stress free week of firsts and hopefully not last for everyone. Taranaki has truly become my, and I think most of our most beloved place. Until next time, Cheers- Rex
     
    PS. We watched Lord of the Rings and realized… there are nine of us and nine of the Fellowship. So we came to the conclusion that we are the Fellowship…-Annie