Blogs from Waitomo Caves, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

This morning as we were leaving our site, we talked to a guy who had camped there. He was hiking the Highway, which was super impressive. We continued on the Forgotten World Highway and went through the Moki Tunnel, which was built in 1936 This one-way 180m tunnel is also known as ‘Hobbits Hole’, and the site where unique giant crab fossils were found during construction. It was really cool. We then went on a bunch of unsealed road to get to Mt. Damper falls, which is the North Island's highest waterfall. It was pretty cool...even if we couldn't see the whole thing (just the top part). The walk to and from the waterfall was a little tough because it had rained a lot, so there was a lot of squishy ground, mud puddles and sheep ... read more

It has been a very eventful last couple of days! Sunday night I had a change of plans, and instead of going straight to Wellington like I thought, I decided to grab a ride with two of my new homies (one of whom owns a van) to the region North of Auckland. We were planning on leaving Monday night but neither Will or Janelle could break their reservation at our hostel, Bamber House, so we couldn’t leave until Tuesday morning. Monday night was miserable- there wasn’t enough room in Bamber House for me to stay, so I ended up at a less-friendly hostel down the road. The actual hostel was fine, there were a few familiar faces, but I was miserable. I walked there with my backpack on in the pouring rain thinking of how much ... read more

18th May 2009 We traveled on from our overnight stop and reached Waitomo caves. These are special caves as they contain an abundance of glow worms. First up was a look around the caves museum where we found out about the life cycle of a glow worm and the history of the caves. A tour of the caves was next up where our eccentric tour guide told us about various cave formations. We then descended down into the depths and boarded a boat on the river running through the cave. Above us were tiny star-like blobs covering almost all areas of the caves ceiling. As the water level was really high we felt a little too close for comfort to there "sticky, poisonous strands of silk". The rest of the day was spent traveling to Rotorua. ... read more

So back on the fun bus after breakfast for the longest drive (Hopefully) on this North Island to South Island trip. Passing fantastic valleys, hills and forest during the 6 hour journey gave us the home views that the countryside and even scenes out of "Lord of the Rings" which was filmed here in New Zealand. Glow-worms and deep, deep caves Waitomo, in the central North Island, is an area renowned for limestone caves, glow-worms, adventure and fun, and is a place not to be missed. The name Waitomo comes from the Maori wai, water and tomo, hole or shaft. Activities centre around a small village called Waitomo Caves (or simply Waitomo) where the Museum of Caves is the focal point. For more than 100 years the Glow-worm Cave of Waitomo has attracted millions of people ... read more

DAY 3 (Feb 8th) We left the bay of islands early and made our way back to Auckland for lunch while we picked up the rest of our tour mates. We added 19 people to fill our bus to 50 for the rest of the trip. Then we continued on to Waitomo. In Waitomo I stayed with three other girls, two Australians and a Canadian. When we arrived many of us went underground cave rafting and glow worm spotting. The glow worms look a lot like stars in the sky in the dark caves. We jumped off a few waterfalls the tallest being about 10 feet. Afterwards we ate soup and bagels while chatting with our tour guides and some of the locals. That night we had a pizza party with every one. Pizza here isn't ... read more