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Published: August 7th 2007
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Entrance to Cave
Really cool to watch the lights go on one level at a time. If you are wondering about pictures. The site is finally back up and I will add pictures for these blogs in a couple days, when we have more time. Sorry, check back they are worth it.
August 5, 2007
Last night as I was going through the books in the Hobbit hotel, I read the guest book. Apparently there is a donkey and a pig that sleeps above the hobbit holes. Some people were also graced with the pig standing guard outside their unit. Every couple hours I woke up and took a look, but no pig. I think it was too cold and rainy for him to come out of his nice warm home.
Mark and I woke up nice and early to birds chirping and the sounds of spring. The rain had stopped and we were able to have a nice breakfast of left over pizza and coffee with the door and windows open. We had booked a tour for a walk through the cave Ruakuri. Rua (den) Kuri (dog). Ruakuri is a large cave where the Maori people would lay their families to rest. They believed the caves were sacred places that led to the underworld. All the
Mark
Getting ready to watch Billy Blacks Cultural show caves in the area are about 14-15 degrees (C). Toward the end of the tour, we got near the Tapu (sacred) burial grounds and the temperature drops. It is quite eerie and since I am a big chicken I wanted to get out of their quick.
After the cave tour, we went down the street to the Glowworm caves. In the first cave, we were able to experience some glowworms, but nothing like this tour. Once in the cave there are boats that take you down a little river. It is pitch black and when you look up, the ceiling is covered in what looks like thousands of blue green stars. It is amazing. Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures of the glowworms, because they are very sensitive to lights. You can google glowworm caves of Waitomo and see them for yourselves. But a warning before you do. If you have ever seen the Glowworms cartoon, or glowworms Christmas(denise has the tape if you wanna borrow it), the glowworms look nothing like them. In the cartoon, very cute, would love to have one as a pet so I could sing the theme song, “glow little glowworm, glimmer, glimmer”, and
Cutting down trees
I think I am going to learn this sport. then I saw them up close in the light, and eew gross. They are a type of maggots. Barf. They look much better in the dark. (This would be where my brother would joke by saying “oh, just like Emily” hahah. Miss you Pete).
After the Glowworm caves, we headed back to our Hotel where we watched the Billy Blacks Cultural show. Oh, it was great! He is the one that owns the hotel and remember the pig and donkey I wanted to meet, I meet them!!!. The show was hilarious. The audience was made up of about 30 students from Hong Kong and mark and I. Billy Black starts out by showing us how they used to clear the land and the chopped some trees down. He then showed us how they used dynamite to split the wood. He had a girl light the match, while he ran and hid. The stick didn’t go off, so he went to investigate and the stick landed near us and went off. I screamed, Mark laughed. It was not real dynamite. He moved on to the farming portion of the show. It was great. He brought in an opossum that was “carrying”
a baby on her back. He asked me to hold the baby, and when he went to give it to me “it” flew off and landed on the floor. It scared the bejizous out of me. Turns out it was a fur pelt and not a baby opossum after all. By this point I felt like an ass. A show made for children is fooling me at every turn.
He then brought the Pig named Don out. It was so cute. He could moonwalk like Michael Jackson (which the Hong Kong kids loved, I guess Michael is still pretty hot in Hong Kong). Don could also spin in circles. Now I think I want a pet pig….Mark says the house isn’t big enough. Donk the donkey made an appearance next. He was cute and all white, not like donkey from Shrek. Then the coolest part was Billy’s dog went and brought the sheep onto the stage. Once he caught one, it was shearing time. Mark and I both went up on stage and were able to turn a crank that allowed him to shear the sheep. After the shearing, we were able to touch the sheep. I know this
The pig
He was cute and furry sounds stupid but I’ve always wanted to pet one. They are soft and have a natural oily wool. And then it was time to accomplish something else I have always wanted to do. Billy rode in on a huge cow. Yippee, I got to pet the cow too!!! Doesn’t take much to make me happy.
Waitomo (wai means water and tomo means caves) was a lot of fun, and could have stayed another night, but it was time to leave and off we went to Taupo. Taupo is on a large lake in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand. We stayed at the Caboose Lodge, which has changed it’s name to the Copthorn. It would have been nice to know, since we kept driving past it looking for the “Caboose Lodge”. It was a nice hotel, that is decorated like an African lodge. Bizarre, but nice. Mark and I went out for an early dinner and some drinks, not too many since we are going on a jet boat early in the morning.
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