This weekend Arcadia took the group on a 2 day adventure to Waitomo Caves and Raglan to surf.
We left at 1pm on Friday for the 3 hour drive south, through the Waikato, into the Village of Waitomo. The Village itself is all of 3 places – a backpackers, an information building, and a pub. We stopped off at the information building for our “Glow Worm” educational session. Glow worms aren’t worms. They are maggots that excrete a luminous substance to attract water born flies that travel through the caves. The glowing gives the image of a nights sky. But low and behold, the maggots spits out ‘fishing lines’ to catch it’s prey. It’ll catch an average of 2 flies during it’s 6 month life in that cycle before it goes into it’s 3 day ‘insect stage’. The insect stage has one purpose: mate. It has no digestive system and can’t eat. The female lays about 150n eggs and then the cycle of life repeats.
All this of course was told in the narrative that a toddler could understand. “These underground stars are actually maggots that live deep under the earth, producing the image of a night sky. Imagine being in a dark wet cave and looking up to see hundreds of stars. But these aren’t stars. They are the glow worm.”
After that we stopped off at a very decent backpackers and headed down to the pub for some dinner. Alas, dinner wasn’t served for another half hour so Mike and I ventured around the Waitomo path and experienced a “Legends of the Hidden Temple” and “Xena Warrior Princess” like scenery.
See the curly thing? It’s called Koru, the Maori spiritual symbol for new life, creativity, and new beginnings.
Legends of the Hidden Temple. Find the Puzzle pieces before the timer runs out!
Xena-ish….
These buildings are the Waitomo “Village”
After a small trek, back to the pub for some very unhealthy beef nachos and a “cookie burger” which wasn’t as good as it sounded. PS: Why do Kiwi’s put beats on burgers? Not complaining, cause I love them… but interesting nonetheless.
Back to the backpackers with the gang and an early night in. I think I actually went to bed at 9 or 10. Go me!
Woke up at 9 the next morning for breakfast and then off to the Waitomo Cave place to get geared up in wetsuits as the water was less that 50*F. Aka: Freezing!
After fitting into a tight (and already wet) wetsuit, the group loaded into a van and off to the caves for some black water rafting, which is a fancy name for tubing.
Getting into the wetsuit was quite complicated.
Kristi putting on her booties (and fighting a cold).
The cave was narrow.
The water was deep.
The water was fast.
The ceiling was low.
The waterfalls had falling water.
The glow worms were glowing.
I quite enjoyed it. After an hour or so in the cave we played a game called “Find your way out of the cave without turning your headlight on.” Needless to say, I survived. Only one casualty – my index finger suffered a cut from a rock.
Although most people thought it was very ‘cool’ but not ‘thrilling’, I think this was my favorite bit of the weekend. Something about stalactites and the potential of danger appeals to me. Parts of the rapids were … rapid. Very rapid and we had to cling to the wall. I got caught in one of them and that was a struggle to pull myself up. They have more intense ones, like rockclimbing down into the caves, but alas, tubing was fine by me 
The adventure ended with tomatoe soup and bagels. And onto Raglan and surfing (which many people found much more ‘thrilling’ but I thought was just ‘cool’!
BETTER PICS TO COME. (I obviously didn’t take pics in the cave…. but the tour-guide did… so whenever the disk comes around you’ll get a look see)