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Published: January 26th 2009
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I think it's pronounced "Why-tuhmo" - the tumo part said quite quickly. Can't really get that across, I've been try to say things in the correct Maori way, but it's quite hard. Some people say it doesn't matter, others laugh when I say things incorrectly! Maori for example, the mao is pronounced like the first syllable in mouldy. So there you go.
Waitomo is a tiny village, but it is famous for its caves and glowworms.
I caught the "Waitomo Wanderer" bus at the crack of dawn last Friday, and I was convinced to go "Black Water Rafting,"which involves going along a river in cave, in an inner tyre. I was also convinced to just stay the day, not the two I had planned. Anyone who has read by blog recently would see that this was a bad idea, I have no idea why I said yes!? I got all dressed up in my wetsuit, got my inner tyre, listened to instructions. Then we were told that we had to jump backwards off a waterfall and into our tube. Everybody did a practice jump but I just asked if it wasn't too late to back out.
It wasn't!
Hooray! I'm sure it wouldn't have been too bad in the tube, but I kept getting riverboarding flashbacks, a bit like war flashbacks, very distressing...So I showered etc - had to get the wet suit skank off, and went into town. I found myself a bed for the night in a lovely B+B, run by an English couple and booked myself some different cave trips!
I went to the museum and learnt that glowworms are actually an insect that behaves like a spider... They are flies at the maggot stage of their life, a stage they stay at for most their life. Some chemical reaction makes them glow and they hang down sticky threads of snot to catch their prey, hence a bit like a spider, yuk. Much more to say, but they
are just maggots...
In the afternoon I went to the Ruakuri Cave, years ago they found some dead dogs in it, nice. I saw mites and tites and glowworms, very nice, not amazing though.
In the afternoon I spent some time playing with a beautiful labrador puppy, not much makes me happier than that!
The next morning I went on the Ruakuri bush
walk, above the cave. This was very cool, very jungly and beautiful. I thought I was lost at one point as was a bit confused, I wasn't lost at all though. Before any aunties get concerned about me walking into the bush on my own, this was a wonderfully marked walk, a path all the way. It is just my stupidity that gets me lost.
I then went on a Spellbound trip. We drove away from Waitomo for 30mins or so and went to some caves that are not so visited by hoards of tourists. We got into a little dingy and floated down the cave, the ceiling was covered in thousands of glowworms, like glowstars that I used to have on my bedroom ceiling! Just magical, as the trip's name suggested. WOW. Amazing. It's impossible to take pictures, as despite all the light they make, it is still too dark. The picture below was emailed to me, by the company, so at least I get something!
In the afternoon I headed back to Rottenrua, very happy to have spent a day somewhere beauitful rather than somewhere stinky, as the city of Rotorua isn't actually a very nice
place...
In the evening I spent some time at the Polynesian Spa, which is just lots of pools of hot water, I watched the day fade away over the lake...
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Mike
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Rafting
I was going to recommend the black water rafting.....:-(( shame you were put off by the river boarding. It is not that scary and very pretty floating through the darkness with the glow worms. Ahh well...... And RE: Ugly Male Trout......all trout are beautiful.....especially if caught by me ;-)