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I survived!! Yes I did it and it was AMAZING! If you are ever in New Zealand, you have to do Black Water Rafting, it's so much fun! Started off by abseilling 27m down into the cave then spent around 2 whole hours doing a mix of caving and tubing, with and without lights... it's awesome. Worse thing is that the water gets pretty deep at times, which would be fine until I discovered that there were heaps of eels in the water and I am NOT joking! I hate eels but just had to deal with it and pretend that they weren't there. There were also heaps of glow worms down there which is a pretty amazing sight. I also challenged myself by caving through gaps that I never thought I would (bit of a claustrophobic) but I did it! After mucking around in the caves for a few hours we had to rock climb out of there, which looked pretty difficult... however I managed to do it with relative ease, I just imagined I was on gladiator and when Daz our guide yelled go I scrambled on up there! The good thing about this trip also, was the fact that this company only take a max of 6 people out at a time, so it is well worth the money. I finished off my time in Waitomo by doing absolutely nothing, I was really tired but even if I did want to do anything my accomodation was in the middle of nowhere and there was no way I was going to try and venture up to the village again!
Next stop Rotorua.. the town famous famous for it's geysers. I arrived this afternoon after getting 2 buses, second of which was far too full for my liking, however I have discovered that buses seem to have a hypnotic effect on me and send me to sleep pretty easily which is a bonus I guess.
Rotorua to my suprise is not as smelly and as tacky as I have been told, maybe I'm here on a good day?!
My hostel is luxury, amazingly clean and modern so stay in Treks if you ever come here. First thing I did was to book the Mitai evening which comes highly recommended from Jo... it's an evening of Maori culture and ground cooked food, so should be good! I then went for a walk around the park to see the thermal pools and lakes, pretty spectacular and yes there is a smell of rotten eggs there. I then went to the lake and found the Polynesian spa, it looked amazing but at 26 degrees outside I didn't really have the time or feel like sitting in a hot pool, so that is a definite on my list to do next time! I did however treat myself to a massage which was just what the doctor ordered after my cave experience yesterday.
Tomorrow I am off to Tokaanu where Jo is due to meet me with her camper van. We are going whitewater rafting tomorrow and then doing the huge 8 hour mountain hike called the Tongariro Crossing and we are also going to attempt to climb Mt Doom.... I think Jo is trying to kill me off! Not sure if I'll have any access to internet or even time so next you'll hear from me will be in Wellington where I'm sure all I'll be doing is recovering from the hike!
Have a great weekend everyone!
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