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by Taryn D & Laura R |
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On July 11th, thirteen girls and six adults left for a 17 day trip to explore New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii. The only drawback was getting there! First there was a five and a half hour trip to Los Angeles. Then after a 4 hour layover in the airport, we boarded a 13 hour flight to New Zealand. We weren’t finished yet, we still had a bus ride ahead of us to get to our destination. We left Girl Scout Council just before noon on Friday, and because we crossed the International Date Line, we didn’t get to Auckland until Sunday morning (their time).
Our first shock was the temperature. Even though we had been told it was winter there, it was hard to adjust to seeing your breath when we had come from humid NJ. Fortunately the next few days were in the 40’s and 50’s and weren’t as cold. We toured Auckland, the “City of Sails” & saw a sheep shearing demonstration in the Agrodome. When we went to the Maori Cultural Center, which is a model native village, we learned about their legends and culture and touched noses which is their traditional greeting.
Rotorua was a thermal region where we saw geysers and boiling pools of mud. At the Waitomo Caves, we boarded a boat for the tour. One of the caverns is appropriately named the Glowworn Grotto. We had to be quiet so we wouldn’t disturb them, and we were rewarded by seeing the ceiling ablaze with millions of specks of light from the worms.
In our free time our EF guides took us to the Agrodome Adventure Park, where we had a chance to try some extreme rides. We zoomed down the mountain on an alpine luge, hovered in the air in a sky dive simulator, & freefell on the Sky Swing which is similar to the Daredevil Dive at Great Adventure (except in NZ you swing out over a cliff !). We had the most fun riding the zorb which was invented there. You ride in a ball inside a ball. You can dry zorb where you are strapped in, or hydro-zorb where you move around. We chose the latter. We were given clothes to wear so ours would stay dry, and the two of us climbed inside the ball. A bucket of warm water was thrown in with us and we were sent rolling down the incline. Now we know what clothes in a washing machine feel like! We can’t wait until zorbing comes to our area!
Before long we were on another flight bound for Australia. We landed in Brisbane and toured a koala sanctuary where we got to hold the cuddly animals and hand feed kangaroos.We traveled down the east coast and visited places such as Surfer’s Paradise, Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world), & Coffs Harbor. We saw plenty of kangaroos along the sides of the road,just like the deer we have here. A 4 wheel drive tour in the national park took us past waterfalls and spectacular views and we got to go on a “tree top” walk above the rain forest.
Sydney was our last stop in this country. We saw the city from the observation deck of the Sydney Tower, took a catamaran tour of the harbor, visited the Opera House, Darling Harbor and the Rocks Area. But for us the highlight was the Sydney Bridge walk. Nine of us, along with 2 brave adults, set off early in the morning for our adventure. First there is a briefing including a safety demo and climbing a simulator of the catwalks. They also breathalize you to make sure that you are sober. All climbers are given a specially designed “bridge suit” that was worn over our own clothes. Since it was cool, we also wore their fleecy jacket. It takes about 3 hours to climb up to the top of the arch of the bridge, and then down the other side. It was really windy up there-and we were glad that we were tethered to the bridge and that they had handrails to hold on to. But what an exhilarating feeling!
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under the water |
During our trip we crossed 9 time zones, took 6 different planes, and spent about 42 hours just in the air. We spent quite a lot of time just getting places, but it was definitely worth it and we'd love to go back.
This is a photo of all the Girl Scouts from Ocean County that were on our tour in front of the Sydney Bridge.