Finally have the hearing back in my right ear... Thank god!!!
Another early start as we're heading down to Waitomo today then on to the national park.
In Waitomo there are loads of deep caves that you can walk through, go white water rafting in, abseil down or even go tubing in which is what we all decided to do. Tubing is where your in not very deep water and you have a big rubber tyre that you sit on and float through the cave.
The reason these caves are such a tourist attraction is that their home to thousands of glow worms which you can see when your in darkness.
So, we went down to some changing rooms where we were given wet suits, rubber boots and helmets that we all changed into and then the guide took us to the opening of the caves where we picked up our rubber ring. We walked down into the caves and the guide told us all about their history and how the caves were first discovered, then we could see some glow worm beads hanging from the ceiling which were really beautiful and he took a quick picture of us there.
The rest of the morning consisted of him telling us more history and stories about the caves and how they were discovered. Every now and then he would get us to turn our headlamps off so that we were in pitch black and then you'd look up at the ceiling and that's when you see what looks like thousands of little fairy lights, which of course is glow worms bottoms.
It was a really amazing sight and at one point he linked us all together so we were all laid on our backs and he pulled us along in complete darkness with a path of glow worms mapped out above us. It was so nice and peaceful and then the guide decided to try and get us to sing... Honestly this country is obsessed!!! No one would sing which got very awkward so I told one of my cheese jokes and all was right in the world again.
But just when we thought we could chill out we got to a drop in the ground where there's like a mini waterfall and the guide told us we had to drop off the side backwards and fall on to our rubber ring. So of course I was crapping my pants and really was nervous... I did it, it wasn't very nice but better than I thought it would be. There was another bit later on where we went down a big slide which was fun but the slide was a lot shorter than u thought it would be so I ended up hurting my heel and Lucy hurt her knee.
There was also a bit which was a lot deeper than the rest and we had to pull ourselves along the path using a big rope which was good fun and we all had a laugh. After this was just a big walk back to the top of the cave where we all showered and got changed and went to look at the pictures he'd taken.
We got a free hot chocolate which was perfect after being in the freezing cold water, then all got back on the bus to head to the national park.
On the way to the national park we stopped at a waterfall which is where they filmed some of the scenes of Gollum from Lord of the Rings, so of course we all posed stupidly and took pictures.
The hostel at the national park was so cute and was like we were staying in a little cabin with proper wooden bunk beds. We cooked a massive communal curry that night which was super yummy, then just chilled out and went to bed.