Cricket, Caves and Cricket

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So our adventure continued with us going to the 5th ODI between New Zealand and England. As followers of cricket will know the game ended with rain and New Zealand won the game and the series. We enjoyed the game, but more so watching the spectators having fights and getting arrested by the police. We weren't sure what most of the fights were about, but they were nearly all between New Zealand supporters. I've been to a lot of cricket games at home and abroad and never seen anything like it. Thankfully we were at the edge of the seating so didn't get caught up in anything.

After the cricket we drove to Kaikoura to go whale watching. We had to wait a few days for a place, but the weather was good so we spent the time lazing about sunbathing. Our trip was for a few hours and after a long time we still hadn't seen any whales and thought that we would be getting our money back, but then a sperm whale surfaced. It did a lot of spouting and then rose up and dived under, giving us a great view of it's tail fin before going under the water. Despite only seeing one whale it was a great trip.

Our time in the South island was at an end so we got the ferry back to the North Island. Our next destination was Waitomo Caves, where glow worms hatch in the ceiling of the caves and emit a light, which you can only see in the dark. There were several trips to choose from but we decided to go black water rafting. This consisted of us wearing wet suits, helmets, boots and having a rubber ring and going underground with 2 guides. We had two waterfalls to jump off, you had to stand backwards with your feet on the edge, then jump backwards into the water whilst holding your rubber ring around your bum, and hopefully land on the water on the rubber ring, without hitting any rocks! We all managed to do it although it was quite nerve wracking.

The best bit was when we were all sitting on our rubber tyres, linked together and the guides pulled us through the caves and we could lean back and look at the glow worms above us. It was a great trip - the best we have done in New Zealand.

From there we have driven to Orewa, a small coastal town just north of Auckland. Tonight is our last night in the campervan, tomorrow we drive back to Auckland to give it back. Then after a night in Auckland we get the train to Hamilton, for the first test match between New Zealand and England, staying in a motel with an onsuite bathroom. Hooray!

Lets hope the weather gets better for the cricket, we have had a few days of rain and cloud.

Hope you are all well, love to you all.

Tina

p.s. Happy Birthday to Anne and Tracy for the 4th March, and to Pat on the 6th.

p.p.s. We will hopefully have a flag at the cricket. It will have THE LEAF on it (The name of the team Chris plays for).

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Photos

Cricket
The first ball of the game