We left Phillip's house early on Saturday morning to take the 7:15 bus to Otorohanga, a small town about ten minutes away from Waitomo. As there is no grocery store in the Villiage of Waitomo, we stocked up on supplies (which are going to last us a while!) before heading out. The bus doesn't go to Waitomo, which is about 10kms from the highway, so we had organized a shuttle earlier in New Plymouth. Our driver's name was Bill, an oldish fellow who was full of commentary on the area as we drove out to Waitomo [why-toe-moh]. Free tour!
Bill took us into the villiage before dropping us off at our hostel for the next two evenings, Juno Hall Backpackers, which is about 1km outside the villiage. It's a small place, though because they get about 600 000 visitors a year, including (apparently) the likes of Katy Perry, Snoop Dog, and Bob Marley, there is some pretty well developed infrastructure ie. a few hotels, a general store, a couple bars.
We got settled in, mainly getting our tents set up and everything important put in The Box (behind the reception desk, it gets locked) before heading down the drive and across the road for our cave tours. Online, we had booked a tour for each of the caves that are operated by the Blackwater Rafting Co. plus a meal afterwards, though when we showed up, the ladies at reception did what they do, and switched our tours around because I guess the one we were supposed to start off on was full? Anywho, so we hopped in the shuttle and we were dropped off at the start of Riakuri, meaning Den of Dogs, and walked down a very cool, forested path to the first cave we toured, called Aruini, named after the Maori who discovered it I believe. It was a big cave, some neat limestone formations, but other than that not really too exciting. After, we walked back up the path to Riakuri and waited for about 45 minutes for the start of the next tour, singing and being ninjas while we waited (moreso I than Ann).
Ruakuri was a neat cave, it went for a long way, and the tour lasted for about an hour and forty five minutes. We saw a few glow worms, some fossils, and more limestone formations. I was pretty hungry when we were done, as was Ann, but we still had our last tour, the Glow Worm cave, to finish. This was amazing. First we walked into the cave, learning some history and interesting geological features of the cave, then it we hopped in an alumminum boat and floated along the river, passing under a glow worm filled ceiling that pretty much just took my breath away. It's like star gazing, when you're eyes get so screwed up from looking at the tiny lights, but you just can't look away because it's so beautiful. Their light is an aquamarine-tealish kind of colour, which they use to attract insects into viscous strands of [poisonous, apparently] thread- you can certainly understand why the bugs would be drawn to them! After our tour was done, Ann and I headed up to the cafe to get our meal, which our stomachs were telling us they definitely needed, only to find it closed and that we had no way back to our hostel. We were lucky and one of the ladies in the gift shop gave us a ride back as she was done for the day and heading our way anyways.
We ate a half sandwhich and made pasta a la Watties, which again didn't disappoint, drank wine and watched the Wales-Ireland and half of the France-England matches before crawling into our tents and getting a good sleep (wishful thinking, damn rooster!) before our blackwater rafting adventure to be had the next day.
Blackwater rafting is probably the coolest adventure thing, probably the only adventure thing, I've ever done! It was a blast! Ann and I got to the reception/meeting point and had some extra time after we'd gotten our meal ticket organized (we were able to get it after all) and rafting waivers signed. I bought the SWEETEST T-SHIRT EVER from the gift shop. It's plain grey, but it says "80 Minutes, 15 Positions, No Protection...Wanna Ruck?" Bahahaha! At first I thought there was only XXL's left, but Ann found a small for me :). Thanks Ann! Anywho, so our one guide, Jah (like jar but don't say the r) got our group together, and we went down to put on our boots, socks, wet suits, and jackets, all of which were wet, making the wet suit especially trying to get on. Suited up, and harnessed, we got a couple group photos taken, and our other guide, Matt, showed up. Everybody ready to go, we piled into a shuttle van and headed out to the start of our adventure!
Before we started the abseiling (rapelling), we were instructed on how to go down in a controlled fashion and practised going backwards down a hill, slow and fast and stopping. After that, we were good to go down the hole into the cave! They call it the Hourglass because you go through a narrow funnel and then it opens up again, like an hourglass. I was near the front of the line, but I was too nervous to go first; I wanted to see it done first. Jah was at the bottom whistling "Don't Worry, Be Happy", which was comforting I suppose. Ann went first, champ! I went second, and boy was that a long 37m down! I wasn't scared, it just took longer than I thought it would to get down to the bottom. We had to wait for everybody to get down which took about fifteen/twenty minutes, so we joined in with the whistling, which of course progressed to singing. Everybody there, we walked along a narrow walkway through a tunnel, spotting a few glow worms along the way, and stopped at the start of a Flying Fox (zipline) which disappeared into the dark. Eek! Waiting my turn was the worst part as of course the anxiety builds up and everybody before me was screaming Bloody Mary. I was buckled in and then away I went! "Jeronimo, jeronimo, jeronimo, POCHAHONTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!!!!" I screamed. I got some applaus and a laugh from Jah who had harnessed me in.
Once everybody got down, we had a break for some hot Milo (chocolate malt powder) and a granola-bar-square-thing, which was perfect timing! After, we all got an inner tube and had to jump in the COLD water (from facebook, you can see I was really not excited to do this), which of course for me, I hit the water and overbalanced in my tube or something and fell in completely :(. Ah well. We pulled ourselves along a rope up the river until we got to a part where there was a bunch of glow worms! We had to turn our head lamps off, though Ann's wouldn't shut off so she let go of the rope to figure it out, then I let go of the rope to help her, and away we drifted from the group, actually a bit of a way. It was funny, we found our way back, and then we were linked up feet-under-the-person's-in-front-of-us-arms to get back to where we had gotten the tubes from.
It was walking/swimming from here on in, mostly walking. We slid down a 'totally natural man-made slide' before we had a pee break; if you pee in a wet suit, it starts to stink, so we pretty much had to strip down to pee (soo worth it though!). Business taken care of, we embarked on the Drunken Stumble. The riverbed there is really uneven, so there's lots of stumbling, even falling, occuring for mere mortals, though because I am a ninja, I did fairly well :). We continued down the river until we took a sharp right hand turn, almost a u turn, up into a smaller passageway, where upon we came across a pool that had a 2 foot long eel in it! Jah started teasing it, and it bit him actually, so we got out of there ASAP, stopping when we arrived at a waterfall. The only way through was up, so up I went! I gladly went first, scrambling up the slick rocks like Gollum (it's the ninja skills), showing 'em how it's done, like a boss. Sidenote: Climbing in a wetsuit is kind of difficult! After that waterfall, it was only another twenty or so meters through a winding passage until another waterfall! Again, I shimmied up, and after walking probably another thrity five or so meters, we entered the light of day!
That evening, Ann and I walked into town to watch the second half of the Aussie-Bokke game (go Wallabies!) and then the NZ-Argentina game at the tavern, Curley's. They had a special on at their on-site liquor store ($15/6 pack), so Ann and I bought it and went and had one outside at this picnic table that was out of the way. There were some fellow Canadians doing the same thing, so we chatted with them before heading in to watch the game. Wallabies won! First half of NZ-Argentina: All Blacks not playing so good 1st half, Argentina putting pressure on them. To the picnic table for our last beer. Second half: Argentina still playing phenominally, but the All Blacks pull it together for the win.
Our guides had showed up for the start of the All Blacks game, so we mingled after. Ann wasn't feeling the night, so she went home around 11:30pm. Matt's friends were there, fun guys, had some laughs. They taught me what "doug-ey-ing" was (some dance from North America), laughed at me for not knowing what it was. Also got comments on my shirt, of course. The night was called around 1:30am, as that's when the bar closed, so I headed back to the hostel and crawled into my hovel.
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