Blogs from Waitomo, King Country, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

In our travels in New Zealand so far we hadn't encountered much of the Maori population, in fact in the South Island we hadn't encountered much of any population at all. But as we headed North the human presence increased, and historical significance of the Maori people became more evident. We left Wellington and drove to Tongariro National Park where we hoped to climb within this volcanic region, perhaps even to the top of Mt Ngurahoe (aka Mt Doom). The land within this National Park was gifted to the New Zealand government by a local iwi (tribe) in 1887, who saw this to be the only way to preserve an area of spiritual significance. We were looking forward to the hiking, but unfortunately over night the weather took a down turn, clouds clogged the sky and ... read more

Matt Writes: Most people spend Sundays nursing hangovers, eating oversized breakfasts while reading equally large Sunday supliments, others may attend church. Our Sunday was to veer (ever so slightly) to the side of unorthadox ways to spend the day of the Sabbath. Up at 7.00 for a quick breakfast because by 8.30 because we were once again squeezing ourselves into damp wetsuits, this time with boots and hardhats with lamps. Today we were going to explore the Waitomo Caves. After a few giggles at our ridiculous costumes we drove the short distance to the cave entrance where we selected our favoured rubber ring and practiced jumping arse first into the cold water from a platform. This was because once we were in the caves we would encounter sub tennian waterfalls that would have to negotiate in ... read more

We got up at 7am this morning and made our way to Rap raft n'rock. After a short drive into the middle of no-where we arrived at a field with a hut and metal storage thingy... we donned our gear whcih consisyed of hard hat ad wet suit wellies and some very special purple trousers!! We looked so pretty! we then did another short drive . we did some practice stuff with ropes on a fence then headed off to do the real thing. we walked down a few steps which led us to the top of the caves we attached ourselves to a safety rope. Kate had taked the lead at this point so she was first to go down when he told her to bend her legs and step off the ledge she said" ... read more

Waitomo is an area which has about 300 caves. One which I have now explored to some extent. Now, to actually get into the cave...well we had to abseil down into the darkness for about 35 metres. At one point it got really narrow but I weaved my way through. The rope was so heavy that I couldn't get a clean smooth descent until I was much further down. We were all equipped with helmets that had head lamps which was cool, twas very scary when you turned them out though! After walking for a little while we had to take a flying fox down to the lower part of the cave...in pitch black! It was so scary sliding down this pulley system at quite a speed, but the glow worms on the ceiling took your ... read more

We left Hahei today to drive to Waitomo – we are going black water rafting tomorrow. The only highlight of the journey was that we went to Cambridge! It is not as nice as the ‘real’ Cambridge. It is MUCH newer for a start and it is a fraction of the size. There was also no university as far as we could see. Lots of people said “It is like the one in the UK”! I can only assume they have not been there. It is a nice enough small town and it gave us a chance to take the obligatory photo and buy a post card.... read more