Patuna Chasm

When I first came to Wellington, Chris told me about an amazing hike at Patuna Chasm. He told me that since half the hike is in water, we would need to wait until the weather warmed up so that we wouldn't be frozen the whole way. During my last week in Wellington, Chris, Owen, and I made the trip out. A French couple also was there, so the five of us did the hike. Adele and Martin were quite sweet. When I lost my sunglasses, Martin ran back to look for them with me. We were lucky that they weren't too far down the trail.

The first half of the hike is through farm land and near some amazing rock formations. This bit is optional, and I considered walking around because of the bees. That's right. The hole right above Chris' head contains a whole swarm, honeycomb and all. Owen made fun of me for not having a sense of adventure (but not a sense of self preservation) so I went ahead and walked this bit as well.

We walked along narrow trails, including some bits that had rope attached so you could pull yourself up difficult portions, until we reached the ladder that lead into the chasm. Not pictured is the really slick mud that was along the narrow trail.

We first walked upstream to a waterfall. Martin and Adele went back down while Owen, Chris, and I had lunch. We agreed to meet up at a spot downstream. Bits of the stream were pretty deep and I walked tip toe at parts in a desperate bit to keep my underwear dry.

We scrambled around, eventually reaching this large rock that had split. The only way through was so narrow that I climbed up the rock to see if we could get down another way. We couldn't, but as I came down I slipped, fell hard on my side and arm, and proceeded to slide another meter or so. I was ok, but it took me a minute to feel it. We all eventually shimmied through the narrow rock opening. Because Owen and Chris are such gentlemen, every time we got to a slick portion of the trail where they thought I might fall, they whipped their cameras out waiting for the perfect moment. That moment came (the one time they didn't pull out their cameras) and I fell on the same side again. It was a slower fall, so I laughed. But I fell into the river, so my underwear got wet despite my best efforts.

We continued downriver, admiring the limestone formations and overhanging trees. I felt like I was in The Jungle Book. Part of the hike was through a cave. I had heard that there might be eels around, so I was a little nervous. Of course Owen asked me to stay standing in the dark water for a bit while he took pictures. There were some neat pictures to be had because despite there being a cave, there was just enough light from the other end. 

Chris entering the cave

I knew that eels liked the dark, but near the end of the hike, we found two eels who were swimming around in daylight. One of them was quite curious and came right up to us. I didn't like how he looked at my shoes, so I continued on to find a dry patch to stand on. Chris put his hiking stick near the eel and the eel obliged him by biting the stick! I was less inclined to go into deeper water after that.

We met back up with Martin and Adele and walked through the pasture to get back to the car. It was a vigorous hike, but one of the best I had ever done. 

Eel Luring

I've been in New Zealand just over 3 weeks now. Even though I've had many great experiences so far, I'll admit to also being a bit homesick. (I also have chosen not to post about the days I was bored or spent time weeding in Chris' garden. Just know that in between days of adventure are days of monotony.) That being said, I'd like to talk about eel day.

Kiwipurler and her kids came over for dinner. I made a fantastic taco salad, if I do say so myself. While normally I'd be hesitant to show a food picture, I want to show this one off because I made the salsa and guacamole from scratch! Much chopping and mixing went into this. It was a great hit. I also had set aside some mince (ground beef if you are in the States) for later on.

Chris had agreed to take all of us to see glowworms and eels. First we had a peek at the glowworms. It was night when we went, so we saw them glowing. During the day, this is what a glowworm area looks like. You can find them along damp rock. (There are pictures in this post if you want to see glowworms at night)

But the highlight of the evening was when we went to lure the eel. There is a big eel living in a crevice of a rock in a stream and when Liam had visited, we tried to lure him out of his hole with some bread we found in a trash can. He poked his head out, nipped the bread, but spat it back out. This time I was armed with mince. Despite my best effort, which included wiggling a stick near the eel's nose, he refused to come out. But then something even better happened. A smaller eel swam up the stream, wiggled over some rocks, and ate the mince. Then the big eel popped his head out and nipped the small eel on the nose! The small eel had gotten the biggest bit of mince and decided that he big eel was a bully, so he swam back down stream. It was one of the neatest things i've seen in New Zealand. Felt like a David Attenborough or Marty Stouffer moment.

 The big eel's nose is visible just to the right of the small eel's fin.

Colossal Squid, Glowworms, And Eels

Today's big adventure started with a train down from Chris' place to downtown Wellington. From there we walked along the streets. I spotted this statue of John Plimmer and his dog Fritz. (It was the dog that got me to stop. Looked a bit like Scooter.)

We took care of some boring things that needed to be handled. But as soon as that was all finished, this procession happened along. Turns out we were on the streets of Wellington on graduation day. And apparently part of graduation includes having all the graduates march down the streets of Wellington lead by a troop of bagpipers. Everyone in the procession wore a silly looking hat. The higher the degree, the sillier the hat.

The rest of our afternoon was spent at the Te Papa museum, which houses the only specimen of Colossal Squid. The whole museum is pretty neat and worth spending time at. But this was the main reason I wanted to visit. The Colossal Squid lives up to its namesake. I spread my arms apart to see how long it was, and I hardly could reach the length of its body, let alone the arms. Let's just say that I wouldn't want to meet one in the wild. 

After the museum we headed home for dinner before departing on another adventure. This time to go look at some glowworms. Chris recommended a new spot to check out the glowworms. It was only after we reached the shifty looking car park that Chris let us in on a secret: he'd never been there before. So we got out of the car (meanwhile we spotted a large, but apparently friendly dog) and headed into the darkness. It didn't take long before we found them. Never mind that we had to climb up a steep hill off of the trail in order to get a good picture. That is what adventures with Chris are all about.

Our second stop was more familiar to Owen and Chris. We descended down a million steps and eventually found another group of glowworms. For those of you not in the know, glowworms are the larval form of a fly that attract potential meals with their glowing bottoms. If prey comes too close to the glow, they are trapped in sticky lines of web.

But those of us bigger than an insect can just enjoy the show.

After the glowworms, Chris lead us down to a stream where we spotted an eel. There is no picture of the eel because despite Chris saying, "Don't worry, the eel is coming to the other side of the bridge," the eel decided instead to headbutt a rock until it had burrowed under it. And so ended the magical day of Colossal Squid, Glowworms, and Eels.