Things...go...very...slowly...in this country, so I started a blog to update instead of sending tons of emails from the café. My name is Daniel ("Taniela" here!) and I may have my own internet connection some day, but I'll keep up the blog. Faka-Tonga!!
It seems like every time I mention earthquakes, one happens. This one nearly threw me to the ground around 7:20 this morning. Definitely the biggest I've felt since arriving, I could see the cars in the driveway dancing up and down. Magnitude 7.9! My neighbour said she was being bounced around her apartment while she was trying to find something nice to wear before she evacuated.
Spectators watch as an undersea volcano erupts off the coast of Tonga, tossing clouds of smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet into the sky above the South Pacific ocean yesterday.
When I got home from school yesterday, my landlady nonchalantly asked, "Daniel, have you seen the volcano?" I've been asked many unusual things nonchalantly in Tonga. "Would you like some dog?" topped that list, but here was a new contender.
"Ahhhhhh. No?" My brain struggled to imagine what volcano that I could see where and what exactly I was supposed to do when a volcano kaboomed. I knew there were two volcanoes in the Ha'apai island group, which I had visited last year. "Where...?"
"At the wharf." Now I knew it was a dream, because if there was a volcano at the wharf, then shouldn't I be dead? Or shouldn't it be hotter... But as I stood there with my jaw hanging open, my landlady went on to describe an underwater volcano that was spewing smoke and was visible from the wharf no more then a five minute bike ride from my apartment.
The volcanologist in me took over, I grabbed my camera, my bike, and sped to investigate. I guess I should have expected something like this. Tonga is on the legendary "Ring of Fire." We have so many earthquakes here I hardly even notice them anymore. I typically sleep through "major earth tremors" like the one on Monday that signaled the underwater eruption of this particular volcano.
It was cloudy, and what I saw was not quite what I had expected (I imagined Vesuvius reborn). But even still it was as awesome as I am. Maybe even twice as awesome. The volcano is about 10 km out from my island, and is shooting clouds of smoke, and steak into the air (which is being, luckily, then blown away from the island). Tomorrow (my Friday), officials will travel to the site to investigate.
The story begins in Auckland, as Lisa inherits the ring from a second-hand shop (unaware of its origins).Daniel the Grey learns some of the Ring's history and advises Lisa to take the Ring away from Auckland.Lisa leaves with her parents, Mom and Dad, to help her.On their dangerous journey, they run into many difficulties and are pursued by the Ringwraiths.At Taupo Bungee, the Council decides that the threat of Sauron is too great and the only course of action is to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom.
Mount Doom is, in fact, Mount Ngauruhoe and Mount Ruapehu, both active volcanoes in New Zealand. Near them is another active volcano, Mt Tongariro, and the hike that crosses it (and near Mt Ngauruhoe) is called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. As soon as we decided to travel to NZ, we’d made plans to hike this “most famous one-day tramp in New Zealand.”And what a hike it was.The trail is supposed to take about 7 hours (though we did it in 5, Post pride!), and passes through a plethora of volcanic landscapes.Every twenty minutes was some new breathtaking view or bizarre volcanic activity.Highlights included:
A ridiculously steep ascent right near the start of the track.Of course at the very beginning they throw you a nice leisurely stroll through the “Dead Marshes,” just so that you’re committed by the time you reach this 45-minute near-vertical part of the track.
The deceptively leisurely marsh stroll at the beginning of the hike.
Hiking into and back out of two craters.Inside one of the craters, the ground was hot (which is, probably, obvious – we’re in a volcano! – but I was still amazed by it) and mists surrounded us as we hiked across.
A ridiculously steep descent down the northern side of the volcano, where your only foothold is endless loose rock.It was touch and go until I perfected and passed on a patented “heel plant and slide” method of not falling to our deaths.
A walk around the top of the volcano where sharp edged volcanic rock and a long, tumbling fall down to the place we had been over an hour before were constantly on your mind.
Emerald green and deep blue lakes and pools (coloured by dissolved volcanic minerals).
Barren landscapes with no vegetation in sight, then hikes through grassy plains and dense forest.
Solid lava flows, sulphur smell, gaseous steam vents with “do not breath the fumes” signs, boiling hot pools, and snow! (well, it’s a novelty for me).
It smelled worse then an Orc’s armpit after a one-week run through Rohan, but it looked fantastic.
We were exhausted at the end, but oh so proud that we had all survived and, while thoroughly enjoying the views, clocked a time under the estimated.We attempted to catch an earlier shuttle bus, but were instead given the chance to hitch a ride to a nearby ski town and wait for our bus at the local pub.Then, beer and french fries at hand, we realized our fatal mistake.We had forgotten to drop the ring into the fires of Mount Doom when we had stopped to eat our lunch.Oops.
Deciding if we should go back to destroy all evil in the world.Nah, too tired.
You may be surprised, shocked even, to learn that life here in Tonga isn’t all biking, beaches, and vacations. I actually have a job here, teaching senior-level history at a high school. It’s the British system here, with a head boy, prefects, and houses (no Gryffindor though). In the Canadian equivalent, I’m teaching grades 11, 12, and 13 (OAC lives on!) history, and grade 13 sociology.
This past week, my supervisor came to visit from Canada for six days to see the school, island, and how I’m doing here. Two of those days were our inter-house sports competition. He also took class photos for our newsletter and magazine.
Completely out of left field, Dad suggested to Lisa and I that we all go bungy jumping.It being his idea would become ironic, when he’d later opt-out.I knew New Zealand was known for its extremes – skydiving, white water rafting, and the zorb (everyone knows what that is). I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was essentially the home to bungy jumping as well – commercial bungy jumping was pioneered by New Zealander A J Hackett.A search through the “Adventure New Zealand” guidebook showed that we would be passing through Taupo, a sort of extremer’s Mecca, where Taupo Bungy promised a jump of 47 meters - New Zealand’s highest water touch.Neither Lisa nor I had bungy jumped before.The closest we had come was sitting in a freefall chair on Canada’s Wonderland’s Drop Zone, but we decided to “go big or go home.”They didn’t take reservations, but made the semi-comforting pledge that they would be operating in any weather save a lightning storm.
I told Lisa that I had to jump first if it was going to happen, basically so that I couldn’t wuss out after she jumped. We waited on a platform overlooking the lake, with two jumpers ahead of us. It appeared that the New Zealand meter was bigger then a Canadian meter, because we were at least a hundred meters higher then 47m.We watched one of the jumpers ahead, who, on “bungy!” was too afraid to jump and needed one of the attendants to shove him off the platform.Next the jumper ahead of me went, and then it was my turn.
“Good mornin’” the attendant said, then, “(stuff I couldn’t understand in New Zealand English)…camera…(more gibberish)…you’ll jump.”I nodded.He asked if I wanted to do the water-touch (exactly what it sounds like), and how “much” water I wanted to touch. I hemmed and hawed; shouldn’t touching water be my goal for jump 2? He said there was no point in jumping from NZ’s highest water touch if I wasn’t going to touch the water…
“Ok, well, I just want to brush the surface with my fingertips,” I decided, and he said no problem mate.
I stepped up to the platform, and Lisa on the bench bedside me disappeared along with the rest of the world.The only thing my brain knew existed was a patch of water below, and it was screaming at me to be careful that I didn’t fall.The attendant said something and pointed; I blankly looked up at a black device beside me, and while my mind contemplated the free fall that awaited, it whirled and clicked.I had no time to think about what it had done, because someone was counting down.When he said “bungy!” I leaned forward.
I am certain that, in my life until then, I have never had a more concerned look on my face.Not scared, just very extremely concerned.“You idiot, you’ve doomed us!” my brain screamed at me, as it struggled to understand what I had just done.I drew in a sharp breath and then a second without exhaling in between.I felt tension around my ankles, and noticed water coming towards me.“Oh yeah,” I remembered, “Water touch!” I stretccchhhhed out my finger tips to ever so lightly brush the water’s surface…and plunged in to my chest.The look on my face instantly changed from concern to surprise, underwater, before I was yanked back out.As I sputtered, I managed to do something none of the jumpers before me had – I got myself spinning.I sprang up and down, and spun round and round, blowing water out my nose.
A raft appeared below, and someone hooked me and pulled me aboard.In the thirty-second trip to shore they grilled me about my life, so that in Lisa’s thirty-second trip they could tell her all about me.Without knowing my fate, Lisa wisely decided against the water touch, but still managed to get a good spin going.All that was left was a hike back to the top, where we could tell Mom and Dad about the fun they had missed!
Lisa and I waiting for the guy in red, who needed a push
I volunteered with a Canadian NGO called VICS to teach history at 'Api Fo'ou College in the Kingdom of Tonga.
I taught from January 2008 to Dec 2009, and the experience changed my life.
Spectators watch as an undersea volcano erupts off the coast of Tonga, tossing clouds of smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet into the sky above the South Pacific ocean yesterday.
