Where Was I?

 

The ferry ride to Wellington was comfortable.  We passed the time on the Cook Strait with some games, a few snacks and some well-needed naps.  A few hours later we were in the capital of New Zealand. 

 

The Best Thing I Saw Did in New Zealand (North Island)

White Water Rafting in Rotorua

 

 

 

This was another tough ‘Best Thing I Saw’ to pick, as again there were so many great days spent on the North Island.  

But, the Grade 5 rafting trip, which included going down the world’s highest rafted waterfall at a 90-degree angle, won the North Island for me.

Honestly, I think I blacked out for most of that final drop, but our boat made it without flipping and we all survived, so that earned a 5-star rating from me on TripAdvisor.  

 

We rafted down the rapids for about 45 minutes before this seven meter waterfall at the end.    Some of it was intense, but there were also some calm parts where the guide would let people jump out of the boat and into the river.  

 

It was a thrill and when I get into the sugar section at the bottom of this blog, I’ll go through some of the steps I had to take to make sure I was safe while on the boat.  

 

Other Highlights

Skydiving Bay of Islands 

I mentioned in the previous blog that I was planning to do a skydive in Queenstown but the weather wasn’t ideal, so I saved the jump for the end of my New Zealand trip in the Bay of Islands. 

Back in 2009, I did my first ever skydive in Australia, but unlike the bungee jump, this was really something I enjoyed and in the right setting I was ready to do it again.  

The dive in 2009 was from 15,000 feet, but this one in the Bay of Islands was 20,000 feet, the highest jump in all of New Zealand.  Apparently it was just recently they started allowing jumps from this height, so I figured, why not?

We did have to wear oxygen masks up in the plane once we went over a certain altitude.  

 

I went with one other guy in my group, who also wanted to get a dive in on the trip, and this seemed like the place to do it.  

Once we reached 20,000 feet, the door opened and down we went. 

 

I also mentioned in the previous blog that I’m not much of an adrenaline junkie, but there’s something fun about the idea of falling out of a plane and soaring down to Earth.  

I will say that while I enjoyed this jump, falling from this height did cause incredible pressure and discomfort in my ears.  It may be tough to tell in the video, but much of the jump I was trying to unblock my ears and it probably took away a bit from the amazing scenery. 

 

While I would like to take credit for this idea, it was someone in my group who had the thought to write my blood sugar on my hand for the Type 1 picture. 

 

I’ll explain more about what I did for this jump in the diabetes section below. 

 

Skydiving wasn’t cheap and I wouldn’t do it every day, but if I had another chance I’d probably do it again.  

 

Redwoods Treewalk

 

One of the nights in Rotorua I went on a night walk to see these 75 meter redwoods.  They really did a nice job with this tourist attraction, building suspension bridges and platforms between the trees with lights surrounding the area. 

 

I decided to go about an hour before sunset so I could walk around in the daylight and see the trees before it was too dark. 

 

It was peaceful to be able to walk through the forest alone and take in some nature before going on the night walk. 

   

Marae Stay

 

I didn’t have too many expectations for the one night we would spend at a marae with the Maori people. 

I knew it would be an interesting cultural experience and something different than what the previous few weeks had been like in New Zealand.

I was most excited to learn the haka, a ceremonial war dance that I knew from watching the All Blacks, New Zealand’s rugby team.  

And it lived up to the hype.

 

I was so grateful I could learn the real haka from those who knew it best.

The entire stay was filled with rituals and a lot of learning about Maori culture, something that remains incredibly influential in New Zealand today.  

It may not have resulted in the best night of sleep of the trip, as about 30 of us slept on mats on the floor in one room, but it was worth the trade off to get this kind of cultural experience just outside Rotorua.  

 

Hitting Golf Balls in Lake Taupo

 

This was just a quick pit stop at Lake Taupo, but I hadn’t swung a golf club for about seven months, so this was an unexpected enjoyable afternoon trying to hit a target in the middle of this lake. 

 

There was a cash prize for a hole-in-one but despite taking about 50 hacks at it, I came up empty.  gg

 

Tongariro National Park

 

This was actually one of the real downers of the trip, as we had a 20km hike planned that crossed over a volcano, but due to inclement weather the trip got washed out and we were stuck inside for a day.  

Some day, I’d like to return to the North Island and complete this hike.  

 

Waitomo Glowworm Caves

 

On the drive to Auckland, we stopped at the Waitomo Caves.  These caves have developed over the last 30 million years and it’s one of the only places to find these glowworms.   It was too difficult to photograph the glowworms, but they were pretty to see in person and the whole cave experience made for a fun afternoon. 

 

 

Bay of Islands

 

About a three hour drive north of Auckland, the Bay of Islands was an area made up of 144 islands at the northern tip of New Zealand.  

On one of the last nights of the New Zealand group tour, we took an overnight boat trip out around the islands.

There was more fishing, some target shooting, kayaking, beach visits, and lots of eating and drinking on board.  

 

 

Waiheke Island

 

After the group tour was over, a few of us with more time to spend in New Zealand took a day trip out to Waiheke Island, which was just a short ferry ride away from Auckland.  

The island was impressive and had a few of the nicest vineyards I would visit anywhere. 

 

The food wasn’t bad on the island either. 

There was also a trek with some modern art sculptures, a seasonal attraction that I didn’t want to miss. 

  

On a more somber note, on the ferry ride back to Auckland, I would read on Twitter about the mosque shootings in Christchurch.  As an American, unfortunately these mass public shootings have become so common back in the States that we’ve almost become numb to them.  It’s sometimes easy to forget that some places in the world these events rarely happen.

In New Zealand, this was far from the norm, so it put the entire country into semi-crisis mode.  

There was heightened security in Auckland and increased police presence on the ground when our ferry returned to the mainland. 

It would be an isolated incident in Christchurch, but at the time there was some concern more cities could be at risk.   

Auckland 

My last few days in New Zealand were spent in Auckland, the most populated city in the country. 

It was a good spot to relax and unwind after a few weeks of adventures and there was a casino near my Airbnb, so I naturally went to check it out and play a poker tournament. 

I enjoyed a few good meals over my last few days in the country and then spent St. Patrick’s Day at an Irish bar, where I enjoyed a Guinness on my final night in the city. 

 

It was then time to get ready to head back to Asia, but this time east Asia where my first stop would be Hong Kong. 

 

The Sugars

Highest high: 272

Lowest low: 43

Avg Morning: 131

Avg Afternoon: 144

Avg Night: 113

Insulin Pods: 3

Avg Basal Rate: 1.10

Emergency sugar supply: Skittles, glucose tablets, energy drinks

 

 

The North Island was filled with more outdoor activities that forced me to plan ahead to ensure I would stay as safe as possible with regards to my sugars. 

A few of the big excursions, like the skydive and the rafting trip, took a little bit more thinking because I wasn’t able to carry my diabetic bag with me for either one. 

For the skydive, as I wrote on my hand for the photo, my sugar was at 86 when I tested it about 20 minutes before going up in the plane.  While that normally would be a number I’d feel comfortable with, I really did not want it going much lower than that.  I had enough on my mind thinking about falling 20,000 feet from the sky and did not want to think about a low blood sugar.

For that reason, I chugged a juice and ate a bar before going up in the plane, which would ensure that my sugar would be on the rise with me as we elevated up in the sky. Thankfully, it did not drop when I fell to the ground (with a parachute of course).   

I did have my sugar tablets in my pocket, but I left the rest of my equipment on the ground.  Everything went smoothly and other than my ears hurting from the rapid drop in pressure, my sugar levels were fine when I was back on the ground. 

The rafting trip put me in a little bit of a different situation because I had to wear a wet suit and could not bring anything with me on the boat.  I was able to give a small packet of Skittles to the guide on the raft, who put them in his waterproof pouch, but that would be for emergencies only.  Similar to the skydive, I really wanted to avoid a low blood sugar when out on the water, so I again had a juice and a bar while we were still on land, and then I left my equipment in a locker at the base.  We would be on the water for only about 45 minutes, so I knew my levels should be in a good spot for that amount of time. 

One of the hard things to gauge when doing something like white water rafting was figuring out how much energy my body exerted from rowing.  That’s one of the unknown factors I tried to make an educated guess about to determine how to balance my blood sugar for that morning.  Any physical activity will lower my blood sugar and that’s one of the harder things to monitor.  Cardio activities like walking or running will lower my blood sugar the fastest, but even lifting weights will cause a drop in my sugar levels.   I had done rowing before in the gym and I anticipated the rafting trip would be similar to that, which was how I planned my sugar levels before leaving on the rafting trip. 

Again, no sugar issues on the trip, and when we were back on land the guide gave me my Skittles back and they were still dry.  

  

I thought I’d start ending these sugar posts with one of my favorite meals in each place or a food related pic.  For the North Island, there were a few really good ones to pick from, but this french toast I found at one of our lunch stops was the winner: 

 

 

That needed about 12 units of insulin 🙈

 

On to Hong Kong…. 

 

Keep the sugar levels steady. 

 

Jeremy

 

 

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