First off I have to mention the fact that we stayed in this creepy Victorian house hotel. I felt like it was out of one of those haunted house movies… Seriously not making this up! It even had those really dark painted pictures hung around the place… although they were of New Zealand tribal place. I bet you though some haunted movie has been filmed there! Okay so besides our place of accommodation the point of going to Waitomo was so that we could see the mystical glow-worm caves. Lindsay and I had booked our excursion to do them “black-water rafting” style and Grandma and Grandpa decided that they would have rather do the walking tour when I booked the trip so that is how it stayed. Well guess what the morning’s temperature was outside… only 14 degrees Celsius! That equals only 57 degrees Fahrenheit! What makes it even better is that the water temperature was 10 degrees Celsius or only 50 degrees Fahrenheit! Definitely makes you want to have joined Lindsay and I don’t it!?!?
That’s alright though Lindsay and I were not the only crazy ones who decided to do it. There was a family of four from Australia, and Irish couple, a guy from the U.K., and 2 girls from Brisbane who joined us on our adventure. First thing we had to do was put on a two piece wet suit, booties, rubber boots, shorts to go over the wet suit, and finally a helmet to complete the outfit. Let me tell you we all looked a little ridiculous, but it was completely worth it! Next thing we did was hop into the van and go to the practice jump location since we had to jump into two waterfalls during the tour. After everyone picked out their inner tube for they wanted to use for the trip we went over to the platform and learned how to jump off the platform backwards into the water below. Well all of you, who know me, know that of course I went last because I am unsure of myself in situations like these and I didn’t want to stand out in the cold waiting for everyone else to go! After the successful practice jump we got back into the car and headed towards the actual caves.
To enter the caves we had crawl down through this little hole and stream of running water and enter the world of darkness. I didn’t honestly have a clue at first how we were supposed to get in the caves but once you were up close the hole became bigger, thank goodness! Once inside each of used the lights on our helmets to guide our way through the stalagmites. It was heaps of fun trekking through the stream of water and observing the caves. Eventually though we hit deep water and were able to float in our tubes. Then we hit the glow-worm part of the cave and everyone was asked to turn off their lights and look up. As we did so they explained to us that the glowing object we saw was actually the worm’s poop! Yeah glowing poop! I wish my poop would glow, nah just kidding! It was rather interesting though to look up and see lots of little neon green specs covering the area above us. From there we moved on through out the rest of the caves by walking, floating, jumping into a waterfall basin, and laughing until it we came to the exit of the cave. It was heaps of fun and I am so glad that I did not just walk through the caves. I reckon it was way more exciting the way Lindsay and I experienced the caves! After the cave tour we met up with Grandma and Grandpa and then hopped into the car to drive to Taupo (3 hours). Once we arrived we just walked around the town, did some souvenir shopping, ate Kebabs, and bought some lollies for them to take home.
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