Blogs from Waitomo Caves, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 9

Today started just like yesterday...in the dark. Sunrise is about 7:30am, so naturally with my always waking early habit, I was up well before then. Today wasn't going to be like yesterday, today I was going Black Water Rafting! (more on that later, and an actual explanation of what it is.) I awoke at 5:30am after what was a fairly bad nights sleep, the bed was comfy enough and no one was snoring, but it was a Saturday night and there was a bit of noise and music coming from outside, it wasn't too bad though and I got enough sleep. I went downstairs to meet the bus at 7am and he took me, and a few other people, down to where the main bus for the day would be picking us up. This bus was ... read more

Waitomo et ses grottes de vers luisants (qui sont en fait des asticots). Superbe tour cet apres-midi avec un groupe de seulement 10 personnes. On a visite ces grottes donc avec des milliers d'asticots colles au plafond de la grotte. Ils brillent pour attirer les insectes qui se prennent du coup dans leur longs fils collants (un peu comme les araignees mais plus lumineux). Tres interessant et magnifique. On a passe une bonne demi-heure dans le noir sur un bateau a regarder ces bestioles briller. Super. et apres ca on a fait une autre grotte, cette fois plus interessante cote geologique. Le lendemain avant de rerendre la route, on est alles voir un magasin ou ils tissent de la laine angora de ... lapin! Quelques photos de cet animal trop mignon! Waitomo, its caves and its ... read more

In the morning we headed to Te Puia, which is New Zealand's most well known thermal area complete with geysers, bioling mud, a live Maori arts and crafts centre and a Kiwi bird house. We then headed to Waitomo (Wai meaning water, tomo meaning cave). The local caves, hiding under the green Waitomo countryside, are made out of limestones, which is basically very old dead fish (in this case about 40 million years old). The caves would have stayed under the sea if the Australians haden't 'puched the continental plate around' (this was apparently the origins of a famous Rugby competition known as the Bledisloe Cup). However, nowadays, even the Australians come over to marvel at the caves that rainwater has gouged out of the rock. While we were there we decided to do something called ... read more

Thursday, 28 February 2008 Today was a full tour day starting at 8:15 am. There are only 14 people in our tour group so it is a very nice size, plenty of room in the bus, and everyone seems very nice. Our driver and guide today was Berndt, a German who moved to NZ about 20 years ago. He was very nice and seemed to know the history of Auckland and all of NZ. We started by driving about an hour and a half and then made a stop for “coffee.” Berndt made sure to tell us to get the coffee first, and then head to the bathrooms. The stop was a shop that sold wool goods, had ice cream and other food to buy, and of course had the bathrooms most of the bus needed. ... read more

With Becs S feeling much better we made our way to National Park and back up to the North Island. This was a sobering thought for us as the realisation set in that we only had five more nights in beautiful New Zealand. We arrived late to National Park giving us our first experience of driving in the dark in New Zealand. As the day turned to night we became even more aware of how rural New Zealand is and how alone and in the middle of nowhere you can feel even though you are on the state highway. As we had already walked the Tongariro Crossing we used National Park as a chill out place with the only plan of action being Bec S in search of the perfect Mt Doom picture. The hostel was ... read more