4th March 2008

The journey to Waitomo was uneventful, apart from a very scenic river stop and being starving the whole time. We reached Waitomo at 12, the home of the famous glow worm caves. Now, I had been down these when I was 7 on the tour and gentle boat ride, so I decided a more extreme was required. So enter black water rafting.

We got suited and booted and after a short ride in a raggedy old minibus, collected out rubber rings. A few comedy photos were taken, a small trek to the entrace was undertaken and we were briefed on the caves and various creepie crawlies. It turned out, black water rafting is kiwi talk for caving with a bit of water "drifting" and a few backwards falls. Good fun though, we got up and close with the glow worms, crawled mostly underwater through tiny gaps and saw some amazing rock formations. All the time our guide was taking photos and attempting to scare us with loud noises in the pitch black. On return to the surface we just got changed and got given our tomato soup when our new grumpy driver, Nigel, stormed in saying if we weren't on the bus in 5 min he'd leave without us. No time to get photos or anything.

Drive to Rotorua was average on coach and driver was crappy and the rain was torrential. Our Nomad hostel was nice and in the centre of town. I booked tomorrows activities and hit up a coffee shop that my hostel had given me a voucher for. Strong stuff. In the evening the hostel had an awesome quiz night, where Sarah, Kirsty and I were the Demon Llamas and didn't come last! We even got fake moustaches and I got lots of free beer, good hilarious times.