Aratiatia Rapids & Huka Falls

After a busy morning taking care of race prep stuff, Jeremy and I needed a quiet afternoon to rest our legs.  They were surprisingly tired from our Waitomo adventure and we didn't want to blow our race.  Chris had mentioned how neat the Aratiatia Rapids were, so we decided to check them out.  Every two hours water from the dam is quickly released down river.  It has something to do with a compromise made with the local Maori tribe.  We hiked up to the lookout points and waited for the action to start.  Even without the cascading water it was a really scenic view and we didn't mind waiting.  We could tell from the wet rock how high the water was expected to go and it seemed like it was going to be pretty high.  

This pic is for Kelton.  It reminded us of Maui's fish hook that he likes so much.

Here is a time-lapse I took of the water release.  The whole thing lasted about 10-15 min.

That was a lot of water!  We chose the lower lookout point so we could hear the rushing water.  It was so powerful.  When filming The Hobbit, this was the river they used when filming the hobbits' escape in the wine barrels.  Just a little trivia for you.

The pool at the beginning.  It was really pretty empty, here it's still pretty full.

After we watched the water recede for a few minutes we drove down the road a short way to the Huka Falls.  It was another neat viewpoint with very little effort on our part.  It wasn't tall, but very powerful.  The water shoots really far down when it hits the main pool which means there is a lot of air in that water and it gives the falls the pretty light blue color.  It is definitely not a river you want to mess with or try to conquer in a kayak.

Race prep

Don't let all of the adventure picture deceive you, Jeremy and I really traveled across the world to race.  Scattered around all of our outings we had race business to take care of.  This is all of the additional gear we need when we race.  Not pictured are our normal suitcases that hold normal clothes, and our small backpacks that carried our airplane stuff.  We are quite the site when we tromp through airports.  

Athlete check-in is always very exciting because then the butterflies start.  The race seems real.  Every athlete we see, we have a tendency to size them up.  Are they in our age bracket?  How fast do they look?  Don't worry, we'll beat them come Saturday.  This was our first international race and this map was really fun seeing where everyone came from. 

 

There are M-Dot signs everywhere.  The girls gave us Fern to take with us on this trip so Jeremy snapped a picture with her in front of the IMNZ sign.  

Without kids our schedule is a lot more flexible, so we took part in some of the race festivities they offered.  I went on a run with some other Women for Tri ladies, including Laura Siddall, a pro who has taken second at this race quite a few times and has some other wins to her name.  After the run we went to a Women for Tri breakfast.  We ate some fantastic food while listening to a pro panel that included Sam Warriner (Bradley), Julie Moss, Laura Siddall, and Jocelyn McCauley.  It is so much easier for me to put a name to faces when I hear their stories.  The emcee asked simple questions, "Why do you tri?" "What do you do when the race gets hard?" "How do you balance life and training?" "What do you eat race morning?"  That kind of thing.  I felt so uplifted by the whole event.  Here are other women who can make things happen.  Other women who try to be good moms, good triathletes, and keep their life in balance.  I was especially impressed by Jocelyn because she's LDS.  She won IMNZ last year.  I went up afterwards to introduce myself to the ladies and broke down in tears!  It was incredibly embarrassing because I couldn't even talk to them.  I just felt so inspired.  

When Jeremy picked me up afterwards he totally teased me for my tears.  It was awesome.  Ready to race!

Lost World Glowworm Adventure

As I was researching fun things to do in New Zealand, I kept coming back to a glowworm caving adventure.  According to the advertising we would abseil 100 meters down into a cavern then tromp through a river experiencing waterfalls, cliffs, eels, and ultimately astounding glowworm caves.  It appealed to every adventurous bone in my body and I just had to say yes.  Oh my goodness, it was everything I hoped it would be and more.  

When we arrived the seven of us in the tour piled into the van with two tour guides, Chris and Chao, and they drove us to the cave.  It sounds like most caves are owned by the farmers who farm over the top of them and they lease out that part of their land to the private companies who organize the tours.  Our tour group had a home base set up where they distributed our wet suits, boots, helmets, and harnesses.  It was quite the process to get everyone set up with all of their gear.  As we suited up we learned a little bit about the others in the group.  We had a couple from the Czech Republic, a couple from Seattle and Boston, a bachelor from Austria, and our guides from New Zealand and China.  It was a pretty great group.  

We practiced using our gear before heading to the drop-in zone at the cave.  Looking down to the cave floor it was hard to distinguish what we were seeing since it was so far down.  They advertise the tour as a lost world.  It really looks like a lost world.  Vines and leaves covered the walls, a small river was running down below, and the cavern was filled with mist from the humidity.  It was insanely gorgeous.  Even though harnesses aren't the most comfortable things, I wish we could have lingered simply because it was such a neat experience. 

At the cave floor Chao pulled out our lunch.  We were instructed to eat up because we would need all the energy we could get.  I ate, because that's what I do, but I wasn't too worried about the exertion level that would be expected of us.  Jeremy and I are athletes, we'd be fine.  As a spoiler alert, by the end of the excursion I was absolutely exhausted.  My legs burned and I was ready for a nap!  We lingered for awhile in the cavern entrance enjoying the view and our last glimpse of daylight for the next four hours.  

When our guides took us down into the river to start wading upstream instead of around the dry rocks I had a feeling we were in for a treat.  The rest of the day was a complete blur of adventure.  We had no watches and no daylight to help us keep track of time.  Towards the end not one of us really had any sense for how long we had been down there.  We trudged through the river sometimes wading in shallow water, sometimes pulling ourselves along using the side walls as supports, sometimes swimming with eels, and sometimes Jeremy floated down the river completely still like a dead body (a little creepy but he said it was really relaxing).  During one of those deep water times our guides had us turn off our lights.  Just a foot above our heads were glowworms hanging out on the ceiling.  We could see their reflection in the water and I felt completely separated from the rest of the world.  It was extraordinary.  

At one point our guides had us climb up a rock then informed us that we would be jumping through a small hole in the ground to reach the river again.  Not only that, but after they had us oriented they turned off our lights and we jumped in complete darkness.  I knew it wasn't far down but it was still a moment of trust and terror as we didn't know how far down we'd be falling.  

Our guides also challenged us to try to pull ourselves up and over the unpassable waterfall.  Jeremy made it up with hardly any trouble at all.  I followed but got stuck and was feeling completely battered by the oncoming water and needed to let go as I washed downstream for a small break.  But after I saw another girl make it up, I knew I had to try again.  I wedged my knee in a crack, tried to find my footing and willed myself up.  Most of the way up my foot began to slip out of my boot.  I couldn't get any traction and I was starting to slip.  Chris was there and after failing to get my foot back in my boot just took it off, stuck it between his teeth, and gave me one final heave to get situated before I finished scampering up.  What a kind soul.  I jumped off the ledge back into the pool, but then took the ladder up the second time.  It wasn't our only chance to jump off ledges and we had a few cannon ball contests.

In one section the river flowed under a large rock.  It wasn't long but it was possible for us to ride the river under the rock, holding our breath the whole way.  Originally I wasn't going to do it, as drowning stuck under a rock is pretty high up on the ways that I don't want to die.  After seeing others successfully make it through, Jeremy leading the pack, I had to join in.  It was fun but slightly terrifying.  Some points of the cave were so small that we were on our bellies crawling through in army crawl.  It felt a lot like Nutty Putty caves.  

Just as I thought that the experience couldn't get any better Chris and Chao had us lay down on a large rock.  I thought that we were getting some well-deserved rest.  I was pretty tired.  It's amazing how heavy those boots get when filled with water.  A quad stretch helped dump out the majority of the water but there was always water sloshing around.  We turned off our lights (for nap time right?), but what we saw was so much better.  Completely covering the ceiling above us were thousands of glowworms.  They stretched both ways as far as I could see, under ledges, and around the bend we had just passed.  I felt like I was in another galaxy floating in space.  It was completely surreal.  Naturally I tried looking for constellations since they looked like stars but I had to keep reminding myself that they were worms instead of stars.  Their lights consistently shown, not a single flicker and it was beautiful.  If I was a Kiwi I would spend hours in those caves looking at those worms.  When you look at them closely you can see their threads hanging down that help them catch their food.  They look like drops of water strung together in perfect symmetry.  

After that grand finale I was feeling pretty satisfied as we worked out way out of the cave.  It felt a little strange to see sunlight again.  We only worked our way about 2 km up the river but it felt like a lot more than that.  Once above ground we had to walk another 2 km back to camp in our wetsuits and sloshing boots.  At least the country side was green and gorgeous.  Once we made it to camp we were able to take a hot shower and change into dry clothes.  The water in the cave wasn't super cold, but I was still shivering at times and I was so grateful to have a chance to warm up.  While we changed Chris cooked us a BBQ dinner.  My plate was piled high with steak, sausage, potatoes, grilled pumpkin, a beet relish, garlic bread, and green salad.  I was a pig and ate it all!  It felt like a big family farmhouse dinner.  By this point we were pretty friendly with everyone in our group and we loved sharing our favorite parts of our trip.  Christ taught us that if we think something is cool, it's "chur" in Kiwi.  And if it's extremely cool then it's "chur to the chur."  It totally reminds me of something a surf bum would say.  But yes, this trip was definitely chur to the chur.

New Zealand here we come!

Last year when we were planning out our race schedule, Jeremy and I caught notice of the races in New Zealand.  There was both a 140.6 and a 70.3 race on the same day, at the same place, on a Saturday no less.  When Dan (our coach) mentioned that it would be a good race for us we were so excited!  It was a fabulous excuse to visit New Zealand.  I've been counting down for weeks now, both with anticipation of the race and because we were going to visit somewhere exotic, new, and on the other side of the world.  Leesa was able to come out and watch the kids while we were gone, which was the only way we were able to make this work.  It's not easy being a single mom with my crew and I was grateful she wanted to help.  We kissed the kids good-bye then boarded a plane for a nice romantic racecation.  The travel was long, not unexpected, and we hit a few hang-ups along the way but when we saw this view out of the airplane window we knew that we were going to be A-OK.   

We landed in Auckland and had a four hour drive to Taupo.  Along the way we stopped at the Hamilton temple.  Unfortunately it was closed for cleaning while we were there, but we wandered the grounds and visited the visitor's center.  I didn't know this beforehand but there was a church college there in New Zealand.  Work missionaries built the temple, the school, and the homes they lived while they worked.  There was an entire complex.  Parts of the complex are still there, but have been updated to include a stake center and other new buildings.  The college closed about ten years ago and they just finished tearing down the old buildings.  The grounds were really pretty, and we enjoyed our walk through them.  

A volunteer couple at the visitor's center recommended Two Birds for lunch and it was delicious!  I think I was just excited not to be eating plane food anymore, but really it was fantastic.  

The roads in New Zealand are narrow and winding.  I remembered pretty quickly how to drive on the left side of the road, my only hang up was the windshield wipers and the turn signals getting confused.  As I worried about that, Jeremy enjoyed the scenery.  It was so green.  Everything was green.  Almost everywhere we looked we saw sheep or cows grazing.  I heard someone saw that there are 7 sheep to every citizen of New Zealand.  I believe it!  

This picture is for Daxton.

When we finally made it to Taupo we checked in to our hotel and decided the best way to stretch out and get a lay for the land was to go on a bike ride.  We hadn't studied the course map before and did our best to ride the course.  It was going to be such a pretty bike ride.  Dan later told us that we had better remember on race day that we were racing and not get distracted by the beauty, save the poetry for later.  

It's a really good thing we enjoyed it that day.  It was our first opportunity to see one of the many steam vents on the island.  There is so much geo thermal activity that vents like this are common.  Common, but still really cool.  

Back at the hotel we started to settle in.  The owners, Jill and Steve, were a phenomenal couple.  Jill used to race before and injury, that coupled with their location on the race course made them the perfect race hosts.   They had hooks installed so we could hang up our wetsuits on the patio.  They volunteered coolers for ice packs, salt for salt baths, and even let us use some of her favorite muscle rub.  It was great, and if we ever go back I wouldn't hesitate at all staying there again.  Our favorite spot at the hotel was the balcony where we could watch the other athletes training the course, and enjoy a view of the lake.  We ate quite a few meals out there prepared in our little kitchenette.  

Now instead of putting in some of our random photos in separate posts, I'll just include them here.  Our first night we town we ate at a local pizza joint.  The pizza was good and I tried ginger beer for the first time.  (Think root beer but ginger flavored..yum.)  However, I loved the unholy donut the best.  It was cinnamon covered and filled with cream cheese and melted chocolate.  Holy cow!  I can't believe we didn't go back for another one.  

We had a great breakfast at Dixie Browns on the lake front.  You can tell that it was overcast and I was wearing my jacket.  I wore my jacket every day until Friday.  It was drizzling and cold, and I hoped it stayed that way until race day!  

The lake was gorgeous any time of day.  While Jeremy had a swim I was able to sit and relax.  I watched the sun set and the sail boats race by.  It was wonderful.