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

I spent about 5 days in total in Raglan just surfing everyday usually twice a day for about 2-3 hours a time. It was brilliant because my hostel has a sauna and a hot tub so I just surfed, relaxed, ate and had some social beers with people the entire time. Raglan is an amazing small town with a great laid back vibe, a sleepy town where time doesn't really matter except when the high and ow tides are for the surf, and a calm get away from life in general. The days melted by and I made some great friends from a couple of Brits, a South African, and several Canadians and Australians. This all being said there really isn't much to do than just relax and surf. I have finished a couple of books ... 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

Valentines day...no cards in the post for us 3 ha ha!! The railway thing we slept in last night was freezing so none of us got much sleep as we didn't have sleeping bags. Today was my turn to drive the 1st stop was not far from Raglan and was bridal veil falls which was a 50 m waterfall. Then we went on to a beach which if u buried yourslef you could feel hot water we only managed to bury our feet but it was pretty weird! After lunch we drove onto Waitomo caves we have been out for a meal in the local pub (not very romantic)whcih was full of NZ workmen! One of the roads we tok today was horendous it lasted for about 1 hour and i couldn't drive any faster than ... 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 have been black water rafting today and it was fantastic, if not a little scary! It is not really rafting at all, more a cross between caving and tubing. You get kitted out in wetsuits, helmets with lights on the front and these very tasteful white boots. You then get given a big rubber ring to sit on and you are ready to go. We started off by walking in the caves which are between ankle deep and waist deep in water. The first bit of tubing involved getting on our rings and lying right back so we could float through a section of cave with a very low roof. You had to lie horizontal or else you would not fit. I found this bit a scary! After that it was sections of walking and ... read more