Sore and sleeping

Lessee, since our last email update, we have:

1) Gone blackwater rafting. AMAZING. Floating through a cave with all our headlamps turned off, looking at the glowworms on the roof meters above us.... Try it sometime.

2) Slept in an airplane. Our team stayed in this hotel that is all these funky rooms -- ours was in a made-over 1950's British air freighter (we stayed in the nosecone). This place also had a Hobbit motel -- I kid you not. We got good pix of it which will send when we get back and get everything downloaded.

3) Gone jetboating on some kind of boat that only needs 4" of water. We jetted around at speeds that I shudder to think of; it was great fun.

4) Wes jumped off a 154' cantilevered bungy jump thingy. (I stayed on the ground and prayed.) The jump was successful, in case you were wondering -- and we have the whole thing on DVD.

5) Gone to a Maori cultural festival and dinner, at which we ate foods that had all been cooked in an earthen oven underground.

6) Taken a walking tour of the geothermal springs in Rotorua. Have you ever seen mud boil? It was mesmerizing; like watching a lava lamp.

7) Ridden a water zorb. The best way to describe that is that it's like a giant hamster ball ridden downhill (with both me and Wes in it), also containing water. It was an absolute blast. http://www.newzealandnz.co.nz/activities/zorbing.html

8) Gone street luging (I even rode the advanced course! At no more than 20 mph, I'm sure.)

9) Eaten at the Skyline Restaurant, high above the city of Rotorua.

10) Hiked Tongariro Crossing (aka Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings) http://www.icdc.com/~neubauer/tong.htm. We did that today (18 km in just over 7 hours; not bad for beginners). That is why Wesley is currently asleep at 8:30 pm Sunday night New Zealand time, and why I am busily typing, because I am so sore I can't get up from this computer chair.

And all of that since Thursday morning!!!

We are heading down to the South Island tomorrow, and from that point on we are totally winging it in terms of what sights we see and what we do (our team split off last night), so who knows when/what we will report next.

Hoping all is well with you,
Wes and Carrie