4.16.00 i can see why they call auckland the adrenaline capital of the world. bungee was basically invented here skydiving, jet boating, rapelling white water rafting, absailing, canyoning, rope and trapeze courses... theres even a giant rubber ball called zorb that you strap yourself into and then go rolling and bouncing down a hill. the worlds highest bungee jump is here: 134 meters, from a cable car. liability law is illegal here - no waivers to sign! each person makes their own decision on an activity. but people are very careful - a lot of the activities have a perfect safety record.

before the humans came, the only mammals here on NZ were bats. this left open a huge ecological niche which flightless birds have filled to some extent. the kiwi has become the country's symbol. Factoid: the mom kiwi lays an egg 20% of her weight and then leaves the male to hatch it. when the baby hatches, it associates with the father and completely ignores the mother. some thanks! there was a huge flightless bird bird called the moa that grew up to 12 feet tall, but it was hunted to extinction by the first humans. moas have no teeth so they swallowed stones to grind their food. the worlds largest eagle, with a wingspan of 9ft, died soon after as its main food source was the moa.

the backpacker crowd here are surprised to see americans travelling . they mostly see europeans, australians, etc. but they do get planty of our culture. shell, mobil, coke, pepsi, nike, mcdonalds, burger king KFC, starbucks, kid rock, billy ray cyrus, savage garden, blink 182, offspring... weve seen/heard all these in both FIJI and NZ. last night twister was showning commercial free on the fox network in the hostel. there's a simpsons marathon next weekend. they make fun of springer/sally and especially david hasselhof.

took the four hour black water caving adventure to see the glow worms. helmets, lites, full wet suits, boots. some very tight squeezes and swimming in cold water up to your neck. the views were incredible, though. thousands of little green and blue dots glowing on the cave ceiling. it almost looked like stars. the glow worm is a very interesting species. they have no poop hole, the glow is caused by the chemical reaction of an enzyme they inject into their poop to burn it. but the glow attracts flying insects, which get caught in the thin strands they lower from their hammock sling. once an insect is caught, they pull it up and suck the blood. their life cycle is interesting. 6-8 mo as a fly larvae (no poop hole), 3 wks in a cocoon, 2 days as an adult fly. the adult has no mouth, but it does have sexual organs. so they shag like crazy for 2 days, that is, if they don't get caught in their neighbor's strand - which many do, and get their blood sucked out. a more accurate name might be "caniballistic vampire maggots with glowing poop" as our guide told us. the female lays 150 eggs in groups of 15-20. the first one out of the egg eats the other eggs in its group. US$55.

visited craters of the moon scenic reserve. there was nothing here until a water plant was built in the 50s. lower water levels caused underground natural reserves to boil furiously. the craters erupted as a result. i guess in this case progress created a scenic area instead of destroying one.

visited honey bee center. manuka honey has been called the worlds best antibiotic. it's from the bees that use the tea tree (similar to tea tree oil). supposedly tea tree oil is anti viral, anti biotic, and anti fungal.

saw the moeraki boulders -- amazing! apparently, moeraki has the most perfectly spherical examples of these smooth, round boulders in the world. though on the beach, they were not eroded into this shape by the sea. scientists call them "septarian concretions", formed when minerals crystallised equally in all directions from an organic nuclei. subsequent erosion often exposes an internal network of veins. further down the beach 2 have been found to contain the bones of a 7m plesiosaur (a dinosaur era sea creature that looks like a snake winding through a turtle's body) and a smaller mosasaur. i wonder what all these other boulders contain...

today we leave NZ for Australia. NZ was truly amazing. so much to see on just these few small islands. so many contrasts: huge glaciers and hot water pools, rainforests and boiling mud pools, the oldest living reptile and the kiwi flightless bird, very friendly people but a past of savage wars and cannibalism. we didn't get to see it all -- if i return i want to see maybe abel tasman, milford sound, franz joseph, dunedin, the worlds best walk etc.