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It was an 8.30am pick up from BASE hostel in Rotorua, as we set out for the day towards Waitomo! I truly hadn't realised what I had let myself in for though regarding the driver of the bus however! His nickname was Ma, so that's what we called him, and he is by far the worst driver I have had on the Kiwi Experience, he was truly awful, but it was not as though I hadn't been warned because I the people I spoke to the night before that had been travelling with him for a few days prior told me what he was like so I was expecting what we got but still he was bad! I was told that he was an hour and a half late the first day he picked the group up from Auckland meaning they had to miss out lots of activities that day! I also learnt that he had been suffering family problems back home which explains why he was acting the way he was as he is usually meant to be one of the best drivers apparently! Immediately once I was on the bus I could see that he wasn't up to the standards of the other drivers that I had had! He would start of by saying something to the bus about what we were to do for the day and then he would just stop mid sentence and not tell us the rest, and he was just plain rude to everyone, he wasn't approachable at all! But if he is really suffering because of problems at home he should take a break from his job for a while and not make us suffer as well as we had all paid good money to be on that bus but thankfully not all the bus drivers are like him!
Anyway, so after meeting the guy and jumping on board the bus, passengers on board were shouting out they would like to go the bakery to get some breakfast as many people hadn't learnt how to get up early and have it before boarding the bus like me and many others! So Ma said he would stop at the local bakery only to drive past it and then keep going the wrong way, the other passengers were telling him the way to go yet he would go the opposite way to what they told him and then complain that they gave him the wrong directions, we never ended up at the bakery that the guys were asking to go to but luckily and randomly we saw this other one so everyone was like that's it even though it wasn't just so that we didn't have to keep going round in circles! So we stopped there so people could top up their food supplies, then we were on our way to Agroventures! But this little episode of the trip made me realise that the driver didn't seem to have a clue where he was going and it seemed like he just listened to orders from people at the back of the bus, he definitely wasn't in the right frame of mind to drive a bus, I don't think!
After the short 15 minute drive from Rotorua we arrived at Agroventures where there was an opportunity for people to do zorbing if they so wished at an additional cost, I didn't do it, and there were only 4 people from my bus that did have a go in the zorb! So the rest of us watched as they were transported to the top of the hill and placed inside the see through ball! There are 2 types of zorb, a dry zorb and a wet zorb, and you can also zorb in tandem! The 2 girls on the bus that zorbed each went in a separate dry zorb where you are strapped in and then rolled down the hill for about 10 seconds until it stops! The 2 blokes that done it went in the same zorb and did the wet zorb, this is where you are not strapped in and the zorb is filled with warm water, so as they rolled down the hill they were falling all over each other and getting a bit too close for comfort, feeling body parts they rather wouldn't have! It was quite a laugh watching them roll down the hill and the guys that worked there were taking photos of them trying to make more money! Once we boarded the bus after the fun of watching the others zorb, Ma got me and 2 other Dutch newbie's to introduce ourselves to the group as that is what they did supposedly when they got on the bus in Auckland, I was dubious about whether they did or not as I didn't quite believe all 50 of them would have got up and done this, so I asked the Danish girl opposite me if they did and they hadn't, but I got up anyway and let the group know my name and where I was from, which got a huge cheer as 80% of the bus was English and what my travel plans were, then I said that I knew that none of them had introduced themselves in Auckland which made them laugh!
From Agroventures we drove through the Waikato and King Country region on our way to Waitomo, the Wai part means water and tomo means cave! Before we arrived in Waitomo we made a stop prior at a place called Otorohanga to stock up on food supplies for the forthcoming day as once we got to Waitomo there was no supermarket or shops to purchase food and drink from as it is a really small town in the middle of nowhere with a population of about 300! This was the last stop before we made it into Waitomo however, and it was only a 30 minute drive from there! Once in Waitomo we stopped off as a black water rafting company as there were a few people doing this as an activity this afternoon so they hopped of the bus to pay for the activity and then after this we went to the hostel that we would be staying at, which was called Kiwipaka, it was a really nice hostel in fact but is the most expensive one that the Kiwi bus stops at so should be a good hostel, the price of Kiwipaka for one night was NZ$29! There was a mad rush as always at check in as we all got off of the bus but I have learnt a good tactic and that is to let everyone check in before you as the hostel give out there worst dorm rooms first so if you check in last you can pay the same price as a large dorm room but get a small dorm room and this was the case at this hostel as I didn't check in until the end and so was given dorm with only 2 beds in it so I was only sharing with one other guy, who happened to be Irish!
Waitomo is famous for its glow-worm caves, but also in the caves stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, cave coral, fossilised oysters and whalebones are all visible! After chucking my gear in the room, I set out on a walk along Waitomo walkway along with 5 others; we didn't go to the glow worm caves however! The walk took about an hour and a half, it wasn't a good workout as they were many steep hilly mountainsides that we had to pass, and we got a group photo along the way! There was one point where we had to walk past a whole herd of cows, which was quite a scary moment as they all stopped what they were doing and just bogged us out and looked as though they were going to charge at us so we tried to get through this area as quickly as possible without making it obvious to the cows that we were a tad scared! Once we made it to the end we arrived at a car park and we met a guy who told us to explore the Ruakuri reserve walkway as he said it was well worth the extra walk and that there was the opportunity to go into some caves, before we followed his advice and did the walk we saw a sign for some caves so followed the route only to find that there was a big metal gate locked at the entrance so we cracked on with walking around the Ruakuri reserve which was a 30 minute loop walk! The walk was a great introduction to the abundance of limestone rock formations, caves, native forests and river systems! Whilst on the walk we saw an entrance to some caves but the entrance was about 6 metres up a cliff face but determined as ever us travellers made it up the quite dangerous rocky climb to the entrance which was very small so we had to squeeze inside where it was pitch black, but luckily one of the girls had a torch so we used that to see where we were going, the caves were pretty cool though although we saw no glow worms we could hear people rafting below us but were unable to find a way through to them, after exploring the whole of this cave we made our way back out of the small gap and down the steep slippery rocky drop which we had to be very careful in making our way down which we were, after this there was not much of the reserve left to see, so we saw the section we hadn't walked around then we found ourselves back at the car park we started in, from here we decided that we would walk back along the main road to the hostel rather than the scenic route by which we arrived by as we felt we may get the opportunity to hitchhike.....and we did, it was my first time hitchhiking! It was really easy to hitch a lift, even though there were very few cars on the roads around here, as when the very first vehicle passed us one of the girls stuck their arm out and the driver of this pickup truck stopped and after this Danish girl that we were with worked her magic we were on the back of the truck and heading back to the hostel! The bloke was really good to us as he wasn't even going anywhere near the hostel where we were staying, it was only a 10 minute ride but would have taken much longer if we had walked it was it was mostly uphill! Once we got off we all thanked him for his goodwill, and then made our way back to our dorms, where I quickly went on my net book, before I went to the kitchen to make my pasta and sauce for dinner, we had to pay a refundable deposit of NZ$10 for cutlery, plates and bowls which we got back the next morning providing we didn't break or lose any of it which I didn't!
After dinner the majority of the people from my bus headed down to the local bar and come to think of it the only bar in the town, which was located right next to the hostel, it was called Curly's Bar and there was a big boxing match on that night according to New Zealanders as their best boxer who was originally from Samoa or Tonga I forget was fighting against this Ghanaian I think, the New Zealander was called Tua and he eventually one on points at the end of the 12 rounds but it wasn't the most entertaining fight I've ever witnessed, after this it was heading into the early hours so I walked back to the hostel to get some kip!
I only stayed the one night in Waitomo as it is such a small place with very limited things to do, but was well worth the day visit, a very nice place, and survives purely because of the glow worm caves in the area! Tomorrow morning we head to Taupo!
Missing you guys back home!
Love Toby xxx
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