Heading toward the falls, we have the road all to ourselves, which is a nice little respite, since it is apparent Kiwis don’t know how to make wide, straight roads. As we near the intersection where we have to turn to go to the falls, what do we see? Captain Wild Bill’s car right in front of us. We just laugh because we know he’s going to the falls, and we can just follow him without GPS or map. Too funny.
And, indeed, he does lead us to the falls, which is the busiest park yet. The lot is jammed full and they have 3 volunteers here directing traffic, telling us where to park, and offering fresh water if we are in need. What a great service.
We park, and head down to the water. There are tons of people here, of all ages and walks of life, picnicking at tables strewn around the lawns, or swimming in the pools above and below the waterfall. As we approach the first viewpoint, we notice a guy who’s walked out onto the edge of the waterfall.
What’s he doing? He’s not going to dive is he? No way. Three of his buddies are standing next to us on the viewing deck and they have GoPro and they are yelling back and forth to the guy (speaking we think German), and then finally one guy says something like zoom – and OMG – the idiot does dive off the waterfall. We are speechless – but not so speechless that we don’t get pictures and a short video (it would have been longer but the buddies were in my way).
Amazing! What a dummy! He did a huge belly flop, which probably hurt like hell, but he survived. We’re still pretty astonished, even hours later.
We continued around the walkway to get a view from the other side, then back around to the original viewing platform, once the buddies had left and we had room to maneuver.
The falls are really beautiful, and even though we weren’t happy with the rain this morning, it probably helped make them so vibrant and photogenic today.
On our way out, we run into Captain Wild Bill again. This time we chat for a bit, and he explains he is the supervisor for the Ambassador program. Established 6 years ago, he said it has grown and become quite the popular program. He’s had a cast of crew that includes all ages and nationalities that all work together on the weekends to help visitors at the park sites. They count the number of visitors, and one of the ambassadors even tries to find out where people are from so he can keep a running tally. It’s a really nice program, and we appreciate the assistance when needed. We wish him well, even though he was stalking us…or maybe we were stalking him!
As we are leaving we spy our first Wicked Van…
…although I’m not quite convinced this counts. There is no snarky saying or bizarre commentary, just Cheech and Chong – which I suppose, in its own way is bizarre commentary. But still. These vans are supposed to be very prevalent in Australia, so, we’ll consider it a sighting.
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