New Zealand

---

We had to get up early to go to the site office and book our trips for the day. The night before we’d picked up stacks of leaflets and had spent our evening pondering which ones to do. Caves don’t really do it for me - it’s not that I don’t like them, but I just didn’t want to spend lots of money on cave trips when I’d rather put it towards something else. In the end Matt decided to do an abseil trip (that was very expensive!) and I decided on a cheap combo tour that visited a large cave and the glowworm cave.

We both headed off into our separate directions; Matt to the office across the road to pick up his trip and me into a minibus.

The cave I visited started with a big spiral entrance and then took us through different corridors full of stalagmites and stalactites. Apparently it takes 100 years for them to grow one cubic cm. Raindrops travel through the ground, picking up nutrients as they go. 18 months later they’ve travelled through to the cave and leave deposits which make the formations. When the drop drips off the end of the staligtites onto the ground stalagmites form. When they join in the middle they form a column or pillar.

Further through the cave system we saw lots of glow worms. The guide tried to help me to get a picture of them (as you weren’t able to use your flash or any lights). He put the camera into a night mode and gave it a try but it didn’t really work. When he handed it back to me I tried to take another picture, thinking he’d left it in the same mode, and the flash came back on. I was mortified and was convinced I’d just killed a few hundred worms. I say worms, they are actually maggots. They live like that for around nine months, spinning stings of web that hang down and help them catch insects (they fly to the light thinking they’ve found a way out of the cave and then get caught). Then they go into a cocoon, and reappear as flies. Unfortunately they only live for three to four days as flies as they don’t have mouths so die of starvation. During that time they make the most of it by reproducing as much as possible.

At times we caught sight of the black water rafters travelling a level below in their tubes. It looked like a lot of fun. If we hadn’t been in a rush, and it had been a bit warmer I’d have been up for giving that a go.

Our guide kept turning off all the lights to made us walk through complete darkness. Even though you know you’re walking along a flat path with a handrail, your instinct tells you to check every step to make sure you aren’t about to walk into something. It was just as well too as everyone was taking it cautiously which meant we all kept walking into each others backs.

Thanks to the guide who was hilarious, it was really good fun and we did get to see some amazing cave formations.

Next I was dropped off back at the tour office and went on to the glow worm trip. This was terrible in comparison to the first trip. Everything we were told was scripted and even the jokes were humourless. We were told almost the same things we’d just heard on the first trip and the ’boat trip’ to see the glow worms was actually only a few metres long. Admittedly, when we turned the corner in the underwater river to see the ceiling full of tiny lights we were all impressed - there were thousands of what looked like fairy lights or stars clinging to the ceiling. In between the glows were patches of blackness which I think were stalactites. As the boat went underneath we realised that this patch was it. I had expected a twenty minute boat trip seeing lots of patches of worms, but actually there was just an area of about 10m x 3m. The boat did a few circles in the water and then it was time to go.

I headed back to the campsite and spent the next hour on the phone trying to sort out yet more problems with our flight bookings. It’s starting to get boring now! I ended up having to email our travel agent yet again with a list of problems.

Matt appeared with a big smile on his face. He’d enjoyed his abseil 100m through a sink hole. There were only three of them in the group including him - the others were a couple from Derby called Paul and Amy - and two instructors called Ryan and Brad. The people that discovered the hole thought it led to a lost world so didn’t venture down there, and the Maori’s thought that a shape shifting monster lived there as they thought the mist they could see was it’s breath.

It took them all about half an hour to lower themselves down in one big group. At the bottom they were next to a river with some fast flowing rapids. Then they walked into the mouth of the cave system where they went to see some patches of glow worm, scaled some large boulders, squeezed themselves through some tight holes and finally appeared at a very very tall (30m) ladder. The instructors both went up first and nominated Matt to secure Amy and Paul to the harness so that they could climb up one by one. Matt said it was a killer climbing up all those steps and every time he looked up to see how much further he had to go, water dripped in his face.

He couldn’t take a camera on the trip but the instructors took photos so Matt got a cd of them afterwards. It sounded like he had a lot more fun than me on my trips! Unfortunately our laptop doesn’t have a cd drive so we can’t put them on the blog.

Next it was time to set off to Lake Taupo. It was a long drive and the rain started pouring down not long into the journey so it made much slower. Finally we arrived in Taupo town centre and decided to call into a few walking shops to buy some bits in preparation for our day long trek of the Tongariro Crossing tomorrow. We bought some gloves and a hat as we figured it would be cheaper to buy them from a shop than on the shuttle bus, and then we headed to the place we’d been looking forward to since picking up the leaflet; The Welshman. It was a pub run by a Welsh couple that specialised in caverys.

We were welcomed by the owner and our mouths started watering as we saw the big joints of meat and the trays of fresh vegetables on the counter. We barely looked at the menu before both ordering the extra large carvery meal which meant we got pork and beef! The owner filled half of our massive plates up with meat and we stacked the rest high with roast and mash potatoes and lots of vegetables (the only thing missing was Yorkshires which was a shame!) It was divine. We ate for ages and ended up so full we couldn’t even make it back for seconds let alone dessert. It was the best meal we’d had in a long time. Apparently most of his trade is from passing backpackers who are missing their mum’s roast dinners just like us.

We got back on the road as it was getting late and we still had to drive to the other side of the lake. On the way we stopped to watch the most amazing sunset I’ve ever seen across the water. I couldn’t believe how beautiful the lake was in the fading light - the water looked just as clear as tap water and it made me want to jump in even though it was evening and quite cold! If we come back to NZ in the future we’ll have to come back and spend some time around this area.

We arrived at the campsite at Turangi and were disappointed to see it was pretty horrible. We’d chosen it because our trek shuttle picked up from there and it seemed an ideal location on paper. We decided to move on to somewhere nicer tomorrow night even if we feel exhausted after the walk.

I called to confirm the pick up time tomorrow (7am) and spent some time packing our daysacks and making our packed lunch. Apparently todays walkers got turned back due to bad weather but tomorrow the weather is looking promising at the moment.

We went to sleep and were both woken up in the night by heavy rain. The rain kept me awake most of the night until I finally dropped off at around 5am. By that time I’d figured the crossing tomorrow would be cancelled.

---

Photos

Glow worms
This was the shot where the flash went off by accident. It only felt right to put this on the blog seeing as I'd probably killed a few thousand of them in taking it!

Just before the sunset
Everything was bathed in blue

This is my favourite shot
Look how clear the water is