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16/4 - We left Rotorua in the morning, and headed a few mins down the road to a place called Te Puia. Its this place where there are a few geysers and hot mud pools, and some maori things. The geysers were really spectacular, spewing water and weird gases high into the air, and the hot mud pools were exactly that, pools of hot mud! I think the area used to be a maori settlement so there was some interesting maori exhibits and stuff there, and some of them did the haka. After Te puia we headed to waitomo which is where the caves are. We couldnt go caving on the day we got there because the water level was too high, so we just settled into the hostel, and then went for a walk along this muddy river in this really nice little forest, there were some really nice views!
17/4 - I had to get up really early so i could be ready to leave for caving at 7:15!! So i managed to make it half asleep onto the bus to go to the caves. We got there and got kitted up, then headed straight for the cave. Apparently the water level when we started was at 56m, and the max it can be is 60! to get into the cave we had to abseil down this hole, which got very small in the middle, which was so much fun, and very dark! When we got into the cave there was then a zip wire down further into the cave, and they made us turn our helmet lights off before we went so we were zip-lining into pitch blackness!! Then we were given these rubber rings and we had to jump off this ledge into the water and land on our rubber rings, which was awesome :) then we floated along a bit on our rings, then we all turned our lights off so we could see the gloworms, which was really cool! they were all over the walls and ceilings and it looked just like looking at the stars, it was really relaxing. Then we did a bit of walking, then some floating because the water was so high! We could just lie on our backs on top of the water and we would get taken through the cave by the current, it was an amazing experience! After manouvering our way through some very small gaps, at times the water pretty much reached the ceilings and we were almost having to swim under gaps, we then had to climb out of the cave up these two waterfalls. This was probly my favourite bit, you got a bit of a rush trying to rock climb with all this water cascading down at you!! It was a really awesome morning, and then we got free soup and bagels, which was nice :) We then drove a few hours down the road from waitomo to Taupo, which is known as the adventure capital of the north! When we arrived I did a bit of walking around to get to know the palce a bit. It's a really nice town, just about the right size for wandering around. And right near the hostel is this huge lake, which is really picturesque. That night we all headed to the bar next to the hostel, called Element, as it was the bars official opening night (even though its been open for about 7 months!) it was a really good night as it was packed and they played lots of cheese :P
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