We stayed in a motor lodge near Waitomo. The room was ridiculously warm so we put the two floor fans to use. A stupid Liam Neison (sp) movie kept me up until 10, then I crashed. We woke up at 6:15... My last early wake up!
I had no expectations for the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company or the caves. My mind was mostly on going through the motions and getting home. But I was pleasantly surprised. We signed up for the Black Abyss tour - the longest one they offer at 5 hours (about 3.5 hours in the cave). Because of the early start time, our group was only 4 people (including a couple from NZ living in London) plus two guides, a couple 22-year olds. We abseiled 40m into the cave, then did a number of things:
- Sat in tubes as we coasted toward an (increasingly audible) sound of rushing water while we looked up at the glow worms
- learned about the glow worms
- zip lined (called "flying foxes" in NZ)
- climbed up through a couple waterfalls
In all, a really fun experience and well worth it.
Afterward, we made a quick stop at a small aviary to see live kiwis being fed. Normally kiwis don't like humans, but this one liked the human, and the caretaker pet the kiwi (rubbing it's feathers up and down, patting it) as if you'd treat a dog or cat.
The end was near. We drove 3 hours to the Auckland airport, and Shweth let me off. He has one more day in NZ. For me, I'm on a flight back to SF as we speak and couldn't be happier.
Photos:
- the huge TV at our lodge in Tongariro National Village Park. Watched a bit of Dumb and Dumber
- I snapped a few photos of the NZ countryside. It's very diverse, but you see a lot of this sort in the north island. Very quaint.
- our glow worm caves group
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