Guest Blogger: Master D
Dec 31st to Jan 20th 2020
After losing January 1st to the nether of an airplane travelling through time, I arrived to New Zealand a day in the past. My old BYU/LA roommate James Hall and his cousin Whitney—the two had already been in the country a couple days—picked me up from the airport.
Thus began the single most thrilling adventure of my life. You know it’s good when you get to 9 PM and you’re so exhausted you can’t even move or speak almost every night. The trip can best be broken down into three parts: Water, Sky, & Road.
Part One: Water.
Aptly named, for me very nearly had two in-water activities per day. Day one was marked by two separate beaches & an evening kayak tour through a glow-worm riddled chasm. Hell of a way to start. We slept at an eclectic woman’s Airbnb where we were greeted by three friendly rat-dogs yapping at 11:30 PM. Whitney shrieked as if murdered while James dealt with a spider—I was in the shower.
Morning marked the start of an out-of-character arrangement. For the whole of the trip, I was awake 45 minutes to an hour ahead of my fellow travelers. On this 1st morning I chatted with Stephanie (the Airbnb host), sipped warm drinks, pet her rat-dogs, & learned about all the fruit-bearing trees she had—kiwi, avocado, lemon, etc. Learned even that there is a golden kiwi! I’m yet to eat one, so it will always be a legend in my mind.
The next day, or rather, after my conversation with Stephanie, the author of the densest self-published children’s books about endangered New Zealand wildlife), tardiness to a Jet Boat ride & subsequent rescheduling led us to visit a waterfall. Te Papua? The name escapes me. Our Jet Boat ride, near Rotorua, took us to a place called “the squeeze”. It reminded me of Southern Utah’s slot canyons, but with dark rock in a tropical setting. Rather than the freezing temperatures of Upper East Slot canyon outside Navajo Nation and Lake Powell, the water we waded through that was at times up to our neck was rather comfortably warm. It was an ethereal experience in a jungle without the venomous creatures I would associate with a place like the Amazon.
Night brought us to our first hostel, The Funky Green Voyager. If the name isn’t clue enough, it was an eclectic little place. We met an adorable and incredibly independent German girl traveling by herself named Ranya for about an hour or so. James had a royal crush on her. I won’t say I didn’t. Never thought I’d like a German accent until then. Visit was “wisit”. Adorable.
Morning of the 3rd day was Kaituna river rafting. Easily the most terrifying and thrilling river rafting experience I’ve ever had—and with surprisingly low stakes. We went off of a 7 meter waterfall! It’s the largest commercially guided waterfall for river rafting in the world. I’m giddy thinking about it. We finished out the day at the Skyline Luge in Rotorua. Similar to the Alpine Slide in Park City, this gave us the opportunity to steer and race each other on an open road down a mountain. Whitney was a bloody cutthroat daredevil, with no sense of danger for herself, us, or the small children she careened past. So she won most of our races. Two separate people gave us their leftover rides that day, so we got almost double the rides we paid for.
On day 4 we found ourselves on a unique river, the Wairoa. There are only 26 raft-able days a year on this river, thanks to a hydro electric dam built above. We scheduled our trip around it! Class 5 rapids, a particularly dangerous rapid called “the Toaster”, and several other rocky happenings. A non-dangerous “car park” we got incredibly stuck in. We drove to a lovely little Airbnb in Wairoa that night where our host woke up at 4 AM to milk cows. They also raised THE most adorable little lambs for eating…
Day 5. The “Black Abyss”. A 5-hour caving trip starting with a rapell into a pit of darkness and a little zipline. The glow worms here were spectacular as we swam through eel-infested black water. We even climbed up 2 waterfalls near the end to get out of the cave. Incredible! That night saw us return to Auckland where we stayed in an Asian man’s house (his name was Jeff) where he had us take off our shoes and wear sandals.
Day 6. A 6 AM flight from Auckland to Queenstown. Rather nice, I must say, Queenstown. Had Avocado Toast for breakfast at a place called Yonder… Awaiting our time slot for the “Nevis” Bungy jump… a 134 meter drop. Quite terrifying. Popped my vertebrae at the bottom just a bit. If I could do it with the same comfort of the 50 meter in Whistler, I’d sure as hell do it again. But I was so thrilled & enjoyed myself so immensely I signed on to do “the catapult”. THAT hurt like a mother f*cker. I’m sorry. It did. Felt like I snapped my head off at the neck. Kind of soured the experience of the bungy.
Night fed us “Fergburger”. Pretty tasty. Hellaciously long line. Burger paled in comparison to Butch Annie’s of Cambridge.
All of the above was written before Jan 18th while I was still in New Zealand. I was trying to log each day’s activities in a “and then” format. But… Uh. I went to the ER in an ambulance while in Wellington on Jan 18th, they last day of my 26th year.
The night before, Jan 17th, James and I were chilling in this sweet cliffside Bachelor pad we rented in Wellington while watching Fellowship of the Ring. I got up from my very own King-size bed to get some delicious Sour Patch Kids and suddenly my heart wanted to be heard.
THUD! THUD!……THUD-THUD-THUD….. THUD!
I felt my heart drop out of rhythm and I felt it stay out of rhythm. It beat unnaturally fast and erratically sporadic. For a minute. Then ten minutes. I waited through the entire movie wondering when it would go back to normal. It didn’t. I thought I’d sleep on it. Great idea in retrospect. I slept… and woke up to a heart still off kilter. I call my mom and she says “go to the urgent care right now”.
So I wake up James and say “hey! Drive me to the urgent care? No rush. Take a shower.”
I’m so dumb.
It’s only when I’m extremely in danger health-wise that I’m embarrassed to make a big deal about it. At the urgent care all was fine until they did an IKG and then “OH!”, says the nurse, “Cardiologist says you need to go to the hospital! An ambulance is on the way!”
They threw me in an ambulance and James had to drive behind and follow.
I had atrial fibrillation. Apparently, my dad’s brothers have it happen all the time, and it even happened to my dad two years ago… They had to shock him back into rhythm. The dangers of Atrial fibrillation are considered high. If it isn’t fixed within a couple days, it could lead to a stroke. Thankfully, all they had to do for me was an I.V. drip of flecainide (a medicine that google says is only used in cases of life-threatening irregular heartbeats). And I went back into rhythm.
I survived! No idea what happened. Probably stress and adrenaline and dehydration and lack of sleep related. I literally adventured myself into the hospital.
Pictures should suffice for the rest of the trip in New Zealand. I went sky-diving for the first time in my life, road a helicopter up on top of a glacier and swam in literal glacier melt, drove a lot, bummed on beaches, river rafted, toured the Milford Sound, hiked, took tours of the special effects house that did the Lord of the Rings, went to Hobbiton, and just generally had a rollicking good time. The best in my life. I am extremely grateful for a good friend to go with and the ability to afford it. So… thanks to my mom and dad. What an adventure.
