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Tags: Indonesia, Sulawesi, Tana Toraja

Death is not as final as you might think in Tana Toraja. After experiencing some of the customs and traditions of a Torajan funeral, we were about to learn about life after death and what happens to the bodies of the dead in this unique Indonesian culture.

The Torajan’s keep their dead in a variety of ways, but importantly they are never burned or kept in the ground. The ground is considered holy and sacred because it gives life, and so death must be dealt with separately.

In this part of the world, there are cave graves, decorated with tau tau (a wooden likeness of the person who has died)…

…and there are ‘hanging’ graves, with coffins suspended on platforms above the ground or with ropes.

There are problems with both of these – unfortunately cave graves are known to be looted if not guarded properly and many of the oldest tau tau have been stolen to be sold on the black market (apparently they can fetch a large sum!). The hanging graves don’t fare much better – after many years the wooden platforms or ropes holding the coffin can decay and crumble, sending the coffin (and the bones inside) crashing to the floor.

In one particular village the dead are even ‘resurrected’ for one day each year, when the community exhumes the bodies of their loved ones, washes them, re-clothes them and then walks them through the town like a zombie parade. Thankfully, we didn’t witness this – but we saw some gruesome images taken by a National Geographic photographer who was working in the area while we were there! (An article with his pictures has since been published here: WARNING – GRAPHIC CONTENT)

One of the more harrowing graves we saw was the baby grave. The Torajan’s consider that the journey to heaven is long and hard – not something a baby is capable of doing. So, when an infant dies before teething, the body is put into a special grave within a living tree. It is believed that, as the tree continues to grow, so will the child inside it, until it is strong enough to make the journey to the afterlife.

It’s not just death in Tana Toraja that is different – the sense of community and responsibility to family is stronger here than anywhere else we’ve been. A symbol of this is the area’s famous Tonkanon.

These are historic and traditional family homes that remain standing to this day. Although not many families still live in a Tonkanon, they are still owned by the families that built them and they are lovingly maintained by every family member. Important celebrations (such as funerals) also still take place here.

Then there’s the sacrifice made by the living members of a family when a close relative dies. We had already been to a funeral and seen the amount of effort that goes into arranging one, but now we were going to the market to get a sense of just how expensive these events can be.

Of course the general food and livestock is sold here, but what really draws in the crowds is the buffalo market.

Knowing how important and symbolic water buffalo are to Torajan culture, it’s really no surprise that there are so many at the market – but I never expected to see buffalos of so many different shapes, sizes and colours.

The real shock is the cost of one of these beasts. It’s not enough just so supply any old buffalo to your grandma’s funeral – you need to get the best possible breed, with white hair, blue eyes and specific fur patterns being extremely desirable.

Some of these can go for up to $50,000 – no exaggeration! It’s when you start to understand the true cost of these animals that you can see the significance of the gift they represent at funerals. At one point Dale and I heard about a particular funeral that happened a month or so before our visit that had a total of over 100 buffalo sacrifices – instead of thinking of the sacrifices themselves, both of us thought of the huge cost!

A person doesn’t bestow a gift like this without getting something in return though – they are safe in the knowledge that the family of the deceased will repay the debt in full when they die themselves. The sense of family obligation is incredibly strong, and our guide Otto told us that there’s no getting out of it – the entire family must attend a funeral (even weddings are not as important!) and if you can’t repay a debt personally, your children must.

A further expense is the coffin itself. These are exquisitely hand carved with intricate patterns, and then painted just as beautifully. As you can imagine, the cost is a hefty one!

Before the end of our trip, Otto took us high into the beautiful hills of the area to see more graves – and simply to take in the spectacular scenery.

Eventually we made it to the last tomb – a huge rock with various graves cut into the stone itself.

While we were there, a worker was busy cutting a new hole into the rock for another coffin to join the rest. Just one of the many preparations taking place for a funeral on the way.

Just spending a few days in Tana Toraja we could easily see how different the notion of life and death is here. Where we come from, life is purely for the living – but in this remote part of Sulawesi death is clearly part of life itself. In some ways, it seems a shame to place so much importance and so many resources on the dead. But the years of customs and traditions of the funeral preparations, the funerals themselves and the aftermath mean that the Torajan’s have a far ‘healthier’ relationship with death. These rituals, however expensive, highlight the care, affection and love of family, friends and neighbours (alive and dead) that exists in this corner of the world – and this is something we could all learn from.

We’d decided before we even arrived in Alice Springs that we should definitely make the effort to visit Uluru (Ayres Rock) while we were so close to it, but we didn’t want to book one of the many tours on offer from Alice – we wanted to do it our own way.

There’s plenty to do at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and neighbouring landmarks like Kings Canyon, but another reason we didn’t want to take a tour is because we didn’t have a huge amount of free time to explore. Because it was the busiest time of year for Napperby, so we had to squeeze our trip into just three days.

After wangling a free set of wheels from our very generous friend Mike, we packed up our things and headed off into the outback for our Uluru adventure extraordinaire.

Because Uluru is around six hours away, we planned to go straight to our camp site at Ayres Rock Resort Campground, have a look around the cultural centre and get a good spot with plenty of time for the sunset.

We spent that night (and every other night on our trip) sleeping in the back of our Ute in swags – it was cold, but great fun and several other tourists (including Australians) confused us for real Australians!

The next day we were up before day break to pack up camp and find a good spot for sunrise. Now, there are separate sunset and sunrise lookout points marked on all the maps of the park advising you of the best places to go. These points are designed to give you the best vantage point so you can see the effect of the sun hitting the rock and magically changing its colour. Because we’d already seen the amazing colour-change effect the night before, we decided we wanted to see the sun rise up from behind Uluru – giving us the outline of the rock – so we went to a ‘sunset’ viewing spot instead. What we saw was simply breath-taking, and because it was a sunset spot, hardly anyone else was there!

In our own time, we headed over to the busier sunrise spot, just to see the famous rock from every angle. From here you could see the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) in the distance behind Uluru.

Next up, we drove around half an hour across the park to see the Olgas a little closer.

We wanted to explore the Olgas more – there are some great trails that go right through the bulging stones – but because we had also planned to visit Kings Canyon (which was three hours away) that day. We decided we would rather use our remaining time in the part to get a bit closer to Ayres Rock itself.

Driving back over to take a free walking tour at the base of Uluru, we were shocked at the scale of the rock as we got closer and closer. It hadn’t looked all that big from the viewing points positioned further back across the bush as there’s really nothing out there to put it into perspective. But, as the road edged nearer, we suddenly found ourselves driving alongside it – it filled the entire windscreen and completely blocked out the sun.

Parking up, we hurried to the free walk (which we had just missed the start of), but we were distracted by the sight of a long line of people struggling to climb up the side of the near-vertical smooth sandstone.

We knew that climbing Uluru is controversial and strongly advised against. We had heard plenty of differing opinion of the matter in the last few months! The Anangu (the local aboriginal people) believe that this area is sacred. They explain that climbing Uluru is dangerous and when people die attempting to reach the summit (which they regularly do), it is extremely upsetting to them. They also say that the notion of reaching the top of an object gives the climber a sense of conquest and ownership – they would prefer visitors make a more emotional attachment to the area (as they do) and explore the perimeter, take in the stories of their people and consider the culture instead. Other people I have spoken to believe that this is all nonsense and purely a con to give the rock a mystical aspect for the tourists.

Having already missed the start of the walk, and considering how little time we had, we weren’t sure what to do. Watching people striving to climb up this behemoth on their hands and knees (with some clearly giving up after the first five metres) ignited my competitive nature. I brushed any guilty feeling aside and we decided to give climbing it a go.

It was steep. Obviously officials don’t want you climbing Uluru so they put a minimum of climbing supports in to help you do it, but even with the chain (which is pretty loose in places) scaling this flat wall of stone was challenging.

Halfway up the chain everyone was intent on getting to the top, but there was a friendly, jovial atmosphere.  People taking a rest cheered on those that carefully manoeuvred around them, and others huffed and puffed their agreement of how difficult the climb was as they passed one another.

We were all stunned into silence though when we heard a phone ringing. One guy ahead produced a mobile and his conversation would have had me in stiches had I not been so worried about falling. It went something like this: “Hello? Yeah, hi mate. Listen mate, I can’t talk right now. I’m climbing Uluru. Yeah. Really hard work mate. Yeah. Look, if I don’t die I’ll give you a call back ok?”

When we eventually reached the end of the chain we looked around in satisfaction – we had made it! People all around us were smiling and talking about the climb, the phone guy kept his promise and made his phonecall, and it was selfie central.

Not having a lot of time, we took our pictures, caught our breath and began the climb back down – followed by some others that had made it up with us.

It was only when we were halfway down the chain we heard a shout of surprise. Turning back, we saw that someone at the top of the chain had carried on climbing – they’d found a foothold to get further up and were now above the platform where we’d all taken a rest – we hadn’t made it to the top after all!

One of the guys behind us sighed and said “well, it might not have been the top, but it was far up enough for me!” We murmured our agreement. We’d probably insulted the Anangu people enough for one day anyway.

When we reached our car we had a rethink. I didn’t feel like we’d seen enough of Uluru to leave yet – so we changed our plan. We had anticipated rushing around Kings Canyon that afternoon and staying at Curtain Springs free campsite (two hours from Kings Canyon) ready for our five hour drive home the next day. Instead, we would drive to the Kings Canyon Resort that evening – right next to the landmark – see the Canyon first thing and then take on the seven hour drive home.

The decision meant we had time to explore some of the areas all around Uluru and its many bush walks.

That afternoon, after we’d had our fill of the rock, we set off for Kings Canyon.

The next day, we would catch it just as the sun rose over the canyon walls. We had decided to do the four hour ‘rim walk’, which would show us all the best views of the canyon and its most famous features the Garden of Eden and The Lost City.

The white and red canyon the cliffs are more than 300 metres high and it’s amazing how green it is – the canyon has the largest range of plants in an Australian arid zone.

The Canyon was spectacular and we were very glad that we’d made the choice to come here – away from the crowds of Uluru. At times during our walk we felt like we were strolling through the beautiful outback alone – and experience I would definitely recommend (along with plenty of water and sun cream!)

On the way back from Kings Canyon, we decided to take a ‘short cut’ back to Alice Springs, which would cut our overall journey by two hours. It was a rough, unsealed road, and I wouldn’t recommend it for anything other than four-wheel drive vehicles, but since we had Mike’s wonderful ute, we went for it.

The drive was actually a lot of fun and we even saw something that both of us had been missing the entire time we’d been in the outback – camels!

For station owners they are a huge pest, spreading cattle diseases and breaking down fences – but for the entire six months we’d been in the Northern Territory we hadn’t seen one! Thankfully, now we’d seen three!

Arriving back at Napperby, we looked over all our pictures and agreed that it had been a tiring whirlwind of a trip – but it had been completely worth it. It was the perfect way to say goodbye to this beautiful and desolate area of Australia that we had come to call ‘home’.

Life for us on a working cattle station was very structured and repetitive. Everyday we would be up ready to start feeding the livestock at 7am.

First would be the poddy calves – these are calves that have been separated from their mothers – and they needed milk twice a day.

Next, I would start my cleaning and Dale would get on with his various gardening jobs and feeding the rest of the animals.

We would both be on shop duty twice a day (Dale would come and help out if it got too busy) and we would finish after serving dinner at around 8pm.

The days were long, but it was hard to get over the novelty of being on a vast cattle station in the middle of nowhere with so much going on. A lot of the time, often just walking around the homestead, I would pinch myself and think ‘look at where you are!’

I got excited every time I saw any animals – which was fairly often – the outback is full of life! My favourites were the kangaroos and the thorny devils.

We also saw some truly spectacular sunsets on Napperby. Because the area is so flat, you can see the horizon – and open sky – for miles around.

The night sky was also impressive, complete with the background howls of a lonely dingo.

On our days off, we would go for bush walks…

…and sometimes we got to visit Alice Springs if anyone was going that way.

Something I had been worried about while working in the outback was the creepy crawlies. Knowing that so many nasty things can kill you, I was a little scared of what we might come across. Aside from the time I almost stepped on a brown snake – one of the most deadly snakes in the world – we actually encountered more nasties in soggy New South Wales than in the outback.

Because we were there just as winter was coming, it was surprising how cold it got in the nights. The lowest temperature we saw in the morning was around -4 degrees Celsius (24 Fahrenheit) and we had to smash the thick ice that covered the poor calves water trough.

By the middle of the day it was normally back to comfortable temperatures though, so layering clothes was key because after a few hours you’d be taking everything off!

One day I was lucky enough to join Roy – the station owner – for a ride in his helicopter. They use the chopper for mustering (rounding up) the cattle because they are spread out over such huge areas and we were going to find the naughty pet horses that had escaped!

We happened to be on the station during the busiest time of year – the annual cattle muster. All of the cattle across the whole station (that’s all 15,000) needed to be rounded up and drafted (sorted).

Those that needed castrating were castrated, and all the males were ‘de-horned’. Thankfully I never saw that side of the work, but Dale ended up going along to help with the draft at one point and I almost didn’t recognise him when he came back – he was covered in so much dust!

Visitors often came and went on the station, but my favourite by far was Ruby – a red kangaroo joey who appeared on the homestead one day and decided to stick around!

It was hard work on the station, it certainly needed a ‘can-do’ attitude and a lot of enthusiasm, but the experiences that we had in return were amazing. Not long left until we leave here for our adventures in Indonesia now though. I will miss our outback family, little Ruby… and the constant supply of steak!

After nipping into the Otago Region briefly to get from the West Coast into Fiordland, we’d planned to go back into it on our way back up north. Our next stop – the Otago Peninsula – is known for great scenery, interesting history, and (perhaps most of all) wildlife variety.

It’s here you can see seals, dolphins, albatross and even penguins. So, when we arrived during the early evening, it was the perfect time to for us to visit the Royal Albatross Centre (which also boasts the perfect spot to watch blue penguins waddle back to their nests at dusk).

The Centre is a great resource, with a free museum area that you can wander around and learn all about Albatross. It’s also one of the only places in the world where the Northern Royal Albatross come inland to breed and you can go on a tour to see the nests. Unfortunately, this privilege is rather expensive, so we settled for watching the Albatross gliding and swooping through the air right above us.

We felt that the penguin watching the Centre offers on its private access beach was rather pricey too, so we found a sneaky place to perch ourselves on the neighbouring cliffs and waited…and waited…and waited.

After nearly an hour, the sun had set and it was getting so dark we were about to give up on the penguins and head back to our van when suddenly Dale spotted a tiny penguin floating about in the surf below.

We sat and watched as it started to make its way up the beach, then stopped, turned back and waddled as quickly as it could to the safety of the waves.

Soon, we spotted others and all of them seemed not to want to approach the beach – even though it was clear they wanted to go home!

Eventually it was too dark for us to see the little penguins, so we called it a day and headed to our camp for the night.

The next day we were up early to try and reach New Zealand’s famous Moeraki Boulders in time for low tide – the best time to see them. It didn’t leave us a lot of time to see Dunedin – dubbed the Edinburgh of the south – but we saw some of it!

We managed to reach Moeraki at the perfect time to see the boulders in all their glory. These massive and perfectly formed spheres of rock are mysteriously found on the beach like a giant’s discarded marbles.

Apparently these rocks were formed over millions of years in a process similar to how oysters make pearls. When formed, they were buried in the soft mud rock which became the cliffs along Moeraki’s bay. Gradually the mud rock has worn away over time – releasing some of the boulders onto the beach.

Hitting the road again, our next stop was Oamaru – where we found a fantastic playground that we just had to have a go in!

As well as its Victorian-style precinct, Oamaru is known for its penguin-spotting opportunities. There’s a reserve where you can pay to enter a Blue Penguin colony, but for the skinflints of the world (us included) there’s also a free Department of Conservation hide where you can observe rare Yellow-Eyed penguins as they return home from their day hunting at sea.

Unlike the Blue Penguins, which (as we learned the hard way) seem to come to shore after the sun has set, Yellow-Eyed penguins can return to their nests as early as 3pm – so we decided to hang around and watch.

Before the beach closed for the penguin parade, we were able to have a look around and found that it was littered with beautiful Pāua shells. These are shells only found in New Zealand and the inside of them is covered with a spectacular iridescent blue.

After exploring on the beach, we retreated back up to the cliff-top hide to get a good seat for the penguin show. This time there was enough light to see the penguins clearly, and because no one was near the beach they were happy to waddle right over the sand to get to their nests – so we got a really good look at them. We didn’t know how many there might be, and it became quite addictive to sit and watch for them. We ended up staying for a few hours just to see as many as we could (five in the end).

Pleased with the experience of seeing one of the rarest types of penguins in its natural habitat, we hit the road again to reach our next camp before nightfall.

On our first morning in the Otago region of New Zealand, we woke up to one of the most glorious sights we came across on our entire trip so far.

We didn’t have time to appreciate it for long though – we had a world of puzzles to confuse ourselves with! Puzzling World just outside of Wanaka was created by Stuart Landsborough, a man famous for designing the first ever fence maze.

It was like no attraction we’d been to before, and we had a lot of fun playing with the different mind-boggling optical effects, such as the hobbit room…

We finished off our visit with the famous fence maze. There are two ways to do it – you can find all the corners in any order and then the exit, or you can find all the corners in a particular order and then the exit. We chose the former, and that was challenging enough! We managed to get out in just under an hour.

After our brains were well and truly exercised, we had wanted to head on to the old gold mining settlement of Arrowtown to make our fortune panning for gold. Unfortunately, fate intervened and problems with our campervan meant that we had to bypass Arrowtown and head straight to Queenstown.

After the problems of the day before, we were rewarded with glorious warm and sunny weather that made Lake Wakatipua a beautiful deep blue and caught the snow on the tops of the surrounding Southern Alps, making them shine like beacons.

To make the most of the sun, we decided to get a better look at the city with the Skyline Gondola up Bob’s Peak. We weren’t disappointed. The views were stunning.

While we were up there, we rode the chairlifts further up the mountain to where we could luge down the racing tracks.

The luges were more like simple go carts with handlebars that control the speed and direction of the cart. They didn’t take long to get used to but, just to be safe, we sampled them on the ‘scenic track’ first. After we’d gotten the hang of it, we raced each other down the fast track. It was a lot of fun, and we were constantly confronted with fantastic views everywhere we looked. Once is definitely not enough with these!

After Queenstown we were due to head south to Fiordland for a boat ride around Milford Sound, but I wasn’t content on leaving without trying one of the ridiculously expensive adrenaline-pumping extreme sport activities that the city is famous for. After looking at the options, from bungy jumping to sky diving, I decided on a canyon swing.

109 metres high, it would involve a 60 metre freefall followed by a 200 metre swing. Different to a bungy, a canyon swing accelerates as you fall and, as you swing, you fly over the ground at speeds of up to 150kmph.

Pleased with my decision, I met the four other nervous jumpers and our jump master with enthusiasm and headed to Shotover Canyon. On reaching the little hut on the side of the canyon and peering over the edge, my excitement flared. The drop looked huge!

After a quick briefing, we lined up ready to meet our fate. Two girls went in front of me. One in particular seemed extremely anxious and would constantly ask the jump master about the best way to do it. She told me she’d never wanted to do anything like this, but that it was a gift from her parents and she didn’t feel she could refuse it. Odd, I thought to myself, that the girl’s parents would pay for her to hurl herself off a cliff… Expecting a bit of drama when the time came, I was disappointed to see that she jumped in seconds without any fuss and came up with glowing reviews of the experience. “You’ll love it” she gushed, “It was awesome!”

When it came to my jump, I was full of adrenaline and ready to go. I felt nervous, but excited and couldn’t wait to dive off the platform. Having seen the girl that was a quivering wreck come back up smiling, I knew I’d be fine. I patiently waited to be hooked up, enthusiastically posed for the cameras and then it was time.

Only I didn’t go. With every step back into my chosen position, I could feel my gut tightening with nerves. It looked so far down to the river rushing at the bottom of the canyon and the thought of jumping over that ledge made waves of panic wash over me.

I knew the jump masters were expecting me to go, but that just made it all the worse – I needed to calm down and having an audience didn’t help at all. I tried to get into the right mind-set – thinking about how much fun I’d had jumping into the waterfall lagoons at Kaiate Falls and Colombia, and how I’d loved the thrill rides on top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. When the courage I needed didn’t come, I thought I could feel everyone’s patience wearing thin. I meekly requested a change of music to try and get me pumped back up, but even when a new song was selected I knew there was nothing else for it – it was go, or pull out completely.

One of the jump masters could see my internal struggle and suggested holding onto the rope attached to my harness. “It doesn’t do anything useful” he said, “but it might help”. It did. Having something for my hands to cling on to made jumping somehow seem a bit more bearable than clawing at the air and flailing around helplessly.  I took a deep breath, and ran.

I’d wanted to leap off the edge with my arms outstretched – I was going for ‘Pocahontas leaping off of the cliff’ pose – but as soon as I’d pushed away from the ledge my legs cramped up in horror and I clung onto the useless rope in my hands for dear life.

I don’t remember all that much about the falling – it was over so quickly! I remember seeing the rocks below rushing up at me, screaming, and the feeling of utter terror as I plummeted. But then I saw the beautiful sparkling river rushing underneath me as I swung out over it, and the wonderful feeling of flying. I could feel the reassuring pull of the harness around me and instantly my muscles relaxed – I was swinging and I was alive!

It was a massive rush, and I was aware of all the nerves in my body jangling with adrenaline. I was also aware of a dull ache in my chest – as if my heart pounding so hard had somehow pulled a muscle! The relief that I was safe and the now-gone terror of hurtling towards the ground had me grinning from ear-to-ear as I yelled a loud ‘wooohoooo!’ up to the skies. And then I was spent. I felt exhausted – as if I’d run for miles.

Before I knew it, the motor to pull me up kicked in and I swiftly rose back up through the canyon to the hut. Even though I was going fairly quickly, I marvelled at how long it took to travel back up to the top after hurtling down the same way in seconds.

The nervous girl that went before me gave me a knowing smile when I reappeared at the ledge and was pulled back in. “How was it?” she asked. “Amazing” I replied, “But I’m not doing it again!”

We’d seen spectacular scenery, volcanic activity and beautiful beaches on our travels in New Zealand, but we were now entering the ‘Wild West’ – where the stormy Tasman Sea batters the rugged coast, giant glaciers calve through sheer rock and crumbling cliff tops create treacherous roads.

Our first stop was at Bullers Gorge to see New Zealand’s longest swingbridge. We had thought that this attraction would be free, but we were surprised to find that visitors must pay $10 just to see the bridge – let alone walk across it!

As well as the bridge, there’s also a zipline across the river that you could try (for a fee, of course), and you can also try your hand at panning for gold. But while we were there it seemed like everything besides the bridge was closed, so we amused ourselves by taking one of the short walks from the bridge to see the White Creek fault line. Although the fault line walk was interesting, the main attraction here really is the swingbridge – I’m just not sure it’s really worth the money to see…

Moving on from Bullers Gorge, we soon found the coast and arrived at Punakaiki just in time for high tide – the perfect conditions to see the Pancake Rocks.

The rocks themselves are impressive to see, but it’s the blowholes that come to life at high tide that are the most exciting aspect of this natural wonder. As the waves crash against the rocks, water gets pushed up through holes and sprays out into the sky like a fireman’s hose – I got soaked when a hidden blowhole nearby suddenly erupted and wind blew the salty sea spray all over me!

Carrying on down the coast, we came across a small town called Hokitika which has a beach that demonstrates just how destructive the wild Tasman Sea can be. The beach was covered – not just in driftwood – but in entire trees that had been washed up on the shore.

After enjoying many spectacular views of the rugged west coast from the road, which hugs the shoreline, we began moving back inland and started spotting snow-capped mountains in the distance. We were entering glacier country.

We arrived early in the morning to see the first of two glaciers in New Zealand – Franz Josef Glacier. Different to the creaking and groaning Perito Moreno glacier we saw in Argentina, this glacier started retreating in 2008, which means it is melting away rather than advancing towards the sea. It’s also smaller – just 12km long. We knew it wouldn’t be like the Perito Moreno, but what we found disappointing was how far away it was. Despite walking for around an hour to get to the viewing platform, the glacier was too far to really appreciate properly. It was clear that others have found this disappointing in the past too, because the platform was littered with signs warning people to stay inside the fence and not approach the glacier.

Another glacier popular with tourists, Fox Glacier, was even less impressive in our opinions. Recent rock falls had left the glacier with a coating of grey dust and rocks, making it look rather dirty.

Maybe we would have felt differently if we’d had the money and time to do a heli-hike on the glacier (a helicopter ride over the top of the glacier and some time on the ice itself).

Leaving the glaciers behind we agreed that although we’d been disappointed, the glaciers were still remarkable. Not because they were the best we had seen, but because they were in the same small country that had also shown us warm white sand beaches, violent volcanic displays and steamy rainforests of giant trees. New Zealand really is a country of huge diversity.

Leaving the west coast behind, we set off for the Haast Pass, which would lead us through the Southern Alps and into Wanaka.

I’d heard that it was a particularly treacherous road in the South Island, mainly because of its winding bends and occasional rock falls, but we managed to get through it without incident.

The pass is also particularly popular with tourists, who take advantage of the many short walks and viewpoints dotted along the way. One walk that we had to stop for was the Blue Pools Walk – a short walk through a native silver beech forest, ending at the pools themselves. The glacier-fed water in these is the colour of bright azure blue, and so clear that you can see right to the bottom.

We could have stayed for far longer, but both of us were getting eaten alive by the vicious sandflies – they were even biting through my jeans!

When we reached the end of the pass we were greeted with the most spectacular view of Lake Hawea and we knew we’d left the wild West Coast behind, with the Otago region yet to come.

After moving on from Waitomo and Rotorua our next stop was the picturesque Lake Taupo – but we didn’t have a relaxing afternoon of fishing in mind…

…Instead, we would be hurtling down a narrow canyon at 85 kilometres per hour on New Zealand’s only white water jet boat ride!

Jet boating is a true New Zealand pastime. Invented here by a farmer in 1953, these boats have no propellers – instead they work by sucking up water through a hole in the bottom of the boat and pushing it out through the back – propelling you along the water like a skimming stone. It means they can shoot across very shallow and fast flowing water very quickly.

There are many places to take a jet boat ride in New Zealand, but we wanted to try it out on the Nga Awa Purua rapids in the beautiful Aratiatia Scenic Reserve – just downstream from the Huka Falls.

The first thing we noticed about the boat was how small and narrow it was. “Streamlined for speed” said our driver, Russell, cheerfully. The next thing we noticed was the noise it made when it was fired up and revving away – it sounded like a hells angel party on steroids!

To start with, Russell expertly steered us all the way up the river to a dam before spinning us around 180 degrees and blasting us back down towards the rapids. He did say he would warn us every time he was planning a sharp turn, but with so much to take in around me I didn’t always notice the hand signals and was flung into Dale on more than one occasion!

As we tore down the river at break-neck speed, Russell would veer and twist the boat to narrowly avoid rocks with skilful jerks of the steering wheel. But that didn’t stop my stomach jumping up into my chest when I saw what we were careering towards – a huge and narrow canyon.  I couldn’t help but draw a sharp intake of breath as we squeezed through the canyon with no sign of slowing down – passing the rocky walls with what looked like inches to spare.

We came flying out of the canyon and bounced over the rapids with the wind and the water whipping our faces. At times the boat was actually leaving the water by about a metre and then slamming back down again with an almighty thud. I felt like a rag doll being thrown around and could not stop giggling.

After 35 minutes of this, we shakily stepped off the jet boat with jelly-legs and huge grins on our faces. I can see why jet boating is such a Kiwi favourite.

We thought it would be difficult to find somewhere that could top the experiences that we had in the Bay of Plenty, but Waitomo had something special in store for us.

This place is famous for its caves – vast and ancient subterranean networks that are perfect for exciting underground exploration and stunning glow worm displays. After looking through the array of options available, such as black water tubing (floating along in a dark watery cave), a trip into special glow worm grottos and canyoning (rock climbing down waterfalls), we settled on the ‘Lost World Tour’ – a 100 metre abseil into the darkness of a massive cavern and a four-hour journey back to the surface.

On reaching Waitomo and meeting Ben and Chris – the guides that would be taking us underground – we were surprised to find that we were the only ones who had booked for the trip that day, so we would be getting our own private tour of the Lost World.

The guys did a great job of explaining about the cave systems underneath us as we geared up with all our equipment. They were formed over millions of years by water and rivers that have eroded away at soft limestone rock. Now there are more than 300 known caves in the area with hundreds more yet to be discovered. The Lost World cave we would be exploring is twice the height of any other known cave in Waitomo!

Before we knew it, we were peering down over the edge of a huge split in the ground where prehistoric-looking ferns clung to the rock and mist swirled around into the darkness below – obscuring the faint silvery outline of a river running hundreds of feet below on the cavern floor.

“The first part will be the hardest” said Chris while doing a final check of our ropes. “You’ll need to sit on the bar running across in front of you and then gently ease yourself off. When you’ve done that, there will be nothing between you and the floor 100 metres down. You’ll be completely suspended in the air by your harness”

Does anyone ever refuse to do it when they’ve gotten this far? “Not really” said Ben “But we do get to see some blistering arguments between couples. Lots of ‘I hate you!’ and ‘I can’t believe you made me do this!’”. Dale shot me a look at that point.

As we tentatively lowered ourselves onto the bar, I looked down through the mist at the glimmering river below us and grinned – this was going to be fun!

Dale set off first, easing himself off the bar and testing his weight on the harness, then it was my turn to slide off and rely totally on the strength of the ropes. It was a little nerve racking to know there was nothing beneath us for hundreds of feet as we dangled there for a few minutes – twirling around.

To start off with, descending was surprisingly hard. Grasping the rope with white knuckles, we were lifting and feeding it through the harness with one hand in order to move down – and 100 metres of rope is pretty hefty. As we gradually sank lower and lower the rope became lighter and easier to lift, which meant that sometimes you would lurch down a little too quickly and end up bouncing around with your heart in your mouth and the harness digging into your thighs.

Every now and then we’d stop and dangle for a while to give our arms a rest and get a good look at this strange landscape. Mist hung all around the dewy ferns that blanketed the rock walls and shining drips of water fell away from us into the darkness below. Apart from our conversation with Chris and Ben, the only sound was the distant roar of the river below.

By the time we reached the bottom we were amazed by where we were. We were now in the bottom of a cave that was first explored in the 1950s by railway builders who’d found their way in using nothing but a few ladders. It was easy to see why this was called the Lost World. It felt exactly like a journey to the centre of the Earth or something out of Jurassic Park, with shafts of light piercing the darkness and illuminating giant lichen-covered boulders and rainforest-like ferns and mosses that glistened with dew drops.

There was even larger-than-life critters hidden away in the darkness. I practically screamed out when Dale pointed out several spindly spider legs sticking out from behind a rock, it turned out to be a cricket the size of my thumb. “It’s just a cave weta” laughed Chris “completely harmless”.

As we climbed away from the cave entrance, the light faded away to blackness and pretty soon we were relying totally on our headlamps.

After what felt like a long climb up a series of giant boulders, Ben and Chris broke out a surprise stash of orange juice and Whittaker’s chocolate – a New Zealand favourite – that we enjoyed while admiring the amazing view of the light in the distance piercing through the black.

Our guides took the opportunity to show us fossils in the rocks around us too – evidence of the pre-historic history of the caves. There were even glow worms twinkling up in the cave ceiling high above us, but they were so far away they were far fainter than the ones we’d seen in the relatively cramped Waipu Caves.

The hardest part for me was the last bit – climbing up a 40 metre metal ladder into the darkness above. We were only able to tackle this one at a time and the guides had to go first to secure the ropes that would save us in case we slipped or fell. Desperate not to be the one left at the bottom of the ladder on my own (the film The Descent sprang to mind), I practically leapt for the rungs as soon as I heard the shout of “all clear” from high up above and scurried as fast as I could up the thing. After about 20 seconds my arms and legs were already tired out! I could never be a fireman!

I’d been climbing constantly for what felt like 10 minutes and I had no idea how far up I was. It felt like I was on a never-ending ladder to nowhere with my legs and arms burning. Even my fingers were starting to cramp up while trying to grip the slippery and cold steel. I was starting to wonder how long I could hold on for and when I would ever reach the end when I spotted headlights moving about above me and I knew I was nearly there – giving me the last push I needed to reach the top.

As we climbed the rest of the way to the surface and stepped out into sunlight and lush rainforest, we felt like we’d accomplished something incredible. At times it was nerve-wracking and at times it was challenging, but we’d journeyed into an amazing lost world and climbed back out with smiles on our faces.  Another world class experience, done!

Now, all of our border crossings this far have been fairly easy. We get our stamp out of one country and walk the short distance to the next country for our new entry stamp and there’s little more to it. Our crossing over to Chile from Argentina was a bit different.

For starters, the Chilean border’s terrain is very mountainous – we’d already met one couple in Mendoza who’d had to delay their travel plans because the passage into Chile was closed due to a snow storm high up in the mountains.

Luckily for us, there was no snow storm on our chosen route from Bariloche to Osorno and the roads were clear. When we arrived at the Argentine border and successfully stamped out of Argentina again (my second time, Dale’s third!), we looked around in confusion for the Chile border officials. Where on earth were they?

After a while of wandering around with our passports, asking various people where Chile’s border was (which generally involved miming a stamp and saying ‘Chile’ to people) we were told by our bus driver that it was still another 30 minutes down the road and he would be taking us there! Feeling a little stupid, we climbed back on the bus and were driven through half an hour of the most picturesque no-mans land I’ve ever seen. From huge swathes of green forest and huge rocky mountains, the scenery turned into a snowy-white Narnia.

After finally arriving at the Chilean border, we encountered the customs police. Chile is super-hot on making sure any fruit, vegetables or animal products from anywhere else do not enter the country. For a country that has Peru and Bolivia to the North and Argentina to the East, we found this a little hard to understand. There isn’t an electrified fence surrounding the country and keeping everything out as far as I could see – surely a stray seed or cow could get through somehow!

Still, while queuing for our all-important entry stamp, we were asked to put our carry-on luggage on a long black table. Then, a solemn-looking man appeared with an excited golden retriever, which proceeded to jump up onto the table and sniff along the rows of bags.

Suddenly, the dog barked and danced around looking extremely pleased with himself. The solemn man reached into the pile and pulled out… Dale’s bag. My mind raced – ‘What on earth could be in there? Did we have anything in there??’ and then a horrible feeling of realisation – we’d bought some chocolate milk a few days ago. We’d forgotten about it and it wasn’t open, but surely that wouldn’t be allowed.

‘Who’s bag is this?’ said the man. Dale stepped forward and followed the man and his dog outside, where they promptly started removing items from the rucksack one by one. Strangely, they hardly even glanced at the chocolate milk and instead asked Dale ‘have you been carrying fruit or vegetables in this?’. Non-committally Dale mumbled that he might have had some bananas in there a few days ago – this seemed to appease the man who stopped his search and returned to the table to find his next victim.

When we thought the search was over, official-looking staff then started taking everyone’s luggage out of the bus and letting the excitable dog check it over. Again, Dale’s was pulled out – the conclusion being that it might have been the smell of mosquito spray that had leaked everywhere which set the dog off.

Then came the next stage of the bag search, where officials picked out bags at random and looked through them. This time my bag was the lucky one to be plucked from the pile. We must look incredibly shady.

The bag-search man, who only seemed to speak Spanish, asked me what I had in my backpack and I tried to run through a list of everything that could be in the bag that I knew the Spanish word for – basically, not a lot. He took a quick look, taking some of the first items out before turning to me and saying ‘solo ropa?’. Now I knew ‘solo’ meant only, but I had no idea what ‘ropa’ meant. After a second of the man trying to mime and me looking completely clueless, he laughed and said my bag was fine. For those who don’t know and can’t guess, I later discovered that ‘ropa’ means clothing.

Although it was our most eventful border crossing, thankfully it wasn’t problematic. As soon as the searches were done, we were back on the bus and on or way. It was only days later when we were safely in Chile that we realised we’d managed to smuggle not only the chocolate milk but also a few biscuits and some packets of coffee across the border… oops!