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Published: November 27th 2008
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After a couple of hard grafted hours behind the wheel we arrived in our very pleasant, if a little generic campsite in Waitomo. Before arriving in NZ I would not have had any idea what the fuss is about this place. So just to inform you guys, the region contains around 350sq m of cave systems that contain not just perfect specimens of glowworms but also adventure caving and experiences that would make the claustrophobic out there prepare a packet in the pants.
Em and I stood in the Waitomo Adventures shop and chose what would be our fate for the next day. The packages come in all sorts of lengths and depths (as do most things) but most aim to educate and produce sufficient addrenalin for a fun packed day. We opted for the Haggas Honking Holes, Em knowing that the experience would test the will and Stuart thinking that he was to have some experience with a Scottish delicacy that smelt a bit.
Well it turned out to be a ride to be ridden. It started with us meeting in the shop and meeting our company for the day, a gentleman from England called Rich whose wife
had done it the day before and then our two instructors. One guy who exuded macho vibes and the other who was shorter than an Oompa Lumpa and would have no problem walking through the caves. As it is quite common in NZ they turned out to be great fun and the perfect combo of instructors.
Once arriving at our changing facilities you get the real understanding of what you are about to embark upon, this is highlighted by the gear that you are told to put on. It is just like you have turned up at a fancy dress party and the theme was ´The most stupid outfit you could ever put on´. It is a wetsuit, with a fleece underneath, followed by white wellies and then a hard hat with light attached. It seemed like Jean Paul Gautier was about to step out from the shadows and shout ´Fabulous, darling´ at us. To top this off we were given some harnesses that we fastened tight enough to make you wish that you were a women and then we were ready for the training.
We had the Macho instructor take us through what type of rope holds
were had to use and of course what to do if you fall etc. Really it was a quick lesson on the techniques that we would use to get us down each of the drops in the cave system. This is what I forgot to tell you, the cave system is not such that you can walk into it, first you have to abseil down a 30m drop and the for the next 3hours you move through the caves, over waterfalls, up cliff faces and then hopefully reappear pretty much where you started. It was awesome, sweet even, we worked well as a team and had a ball. The caves have a constant flow of water going through them and as it had rained hard for the couple of days prior, it was running high. The ice cold water made waterfalls somthing to overcome firstly and each of these differed slightly. The first was the tallest at 30m, your eyes getting used to the darkenss and you getting used to the the feel of the temperature. The second being into a pitch black hole that led into the smallest exit, each of us getting lost and not being to find
the hole. The third was a smaller drop but we had been told that we had to do it in the dark, it made for a mad rush as you drop into a large pool of collected river water. We then followed the guides, with them cracking jokes along the way, further into the system to a depth of 100m under the earths surface. We actually came across the glow worms and had a educational moment, did you know that the light on the end of the worm is poo. So try next time and light your own faeces, see what happens. Stalagtites and mites were everywhere and we learned each of their names, one was called Arthur I think.
After a few hours we had completed our circuit and resurfaced to our meeting place. The whole experience was fantastic and I would recommend to anyone visiting the area.
We stayed our third and free night in the campsite and then moved on the next day. We had a long drive ahead of us, aiming to get to Auckland and stay in a Northern suburb of Takapuna.
We took the coastal route up towards Raglan again, so a
final surf could be squeezed in before the folks arrived. The coastal roads were very basic mud or gravel tracks alongside farmers fields. As the rain had been so heavy we passed quite a few landslides and there were some hairy moments. We camped just outside Raglan at a free spot literally on the edge of a cliff, surrounded only by the sheep, it was very peaceful.
We realised the next morning that our fridge had broken down......typical. So we had to go back into Raglan itself to contact Apollo to arrange them to fix it asap. It meant that we had to drive back to Auckland first thing in the am, as it was a saturday and everything closed at noon, and besides it was rugby day!!
So we got to Auckland in time and got the repair men to look at, but they couldn´t fix it, as they needed a new part. So the only conclusion was to give us a replacement van. we were actually pretty pleased about this as it meant we didn´t have to clean our one before J+F arrived. As you can imagine after 5 weeks of the 2 of us in a
very small place, it was pretty smelly, and we are not the tidiest of people! So we picked up our shiny new version of the same vehicle and pressed onto Takapuna.
It was the final of the tri nations, being played between Aus and NZ. We celebrated with the Kiwis having a beer for every point scored, as you can imagine we hoped for a low scoring game. The result was black and so was our stools the next day. Sorry, a bit graphic. We chilled in the local cafe and looked at each other knowing that the parents were arriving tomorrow. It was that day that we had been preparing for, so an early night at our Airport campsite and we counted down until touchdown.
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