Waitomo caves and Raglan

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Sun 1st July:
We left Te Kuiti and got to Waitomo and the Caves, and got ready to do the 'Tumu Tumu Toobing' Blackwater rafting that we had booked in Auckland. Unfortunately it was too flooded with the incessant rain to go tubing, so they upgraded us for free to the 'Haggas’ Honking Holes' package. We abseiled down 3 waterfalls inside the caves, did some rock climbing and fitted through some very tight spaces to see some glowworms close up.

When you see glowworms (Arachnacampa Luminosa) they look like tiny tiny green/blue L.E.D lights on the cave ceiling. Bioluminescant light glowing everywhere from the Oxyluceferin in their waste (pooh).

When we got out of the caves we were very tired, and didn't fancy a long drive. So we just followed another load of people and we ended up free-camping at the same Motor rest area.

After we ate we went over to see the other people and we watched each others bungee DVD’s, they did Skydiving which was cool. They were 2 sisters from Cambridge and one’s boyfriend from Hartlepool that she met at Uni in York (He did Chemistry, she did Psychology. Other sister was a journalist). They had just done China and did SE Asia very briefly. Similar route to us.

Mon 2nd:
Got up, said our goodbyes to our travelling convoy buddies and headed North and West towards Raglan. Nice town, in summer it’s the surf capital of New Zealand -so a bit like Newquay, and we walked around there for a bit, went to the beach but it was far too windy. Plus someone had a house shaped like a UFO and may have been a serial killer or something, so we left, and went to the nearest brown sign Bridal Veil Falls which for all intents and purposes was closed. Big letdown, but it had a toilet and the works meant that some muppet had forgot to put up a “No Camping’ sign. So we free camped there and watched a DVD.

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