Another early morning arrived, and we piled back onto the Stray bus for the journey to Raglan. Passing through the town of Hamilton, where we’d originally planned to hop off for a few days, we stayed on the bus until we reached the seaside, surfing town of Raglan, where we spent an hour or so in the town, shopping and wandering by the harbour. After shopping in a typical ill equipped tiny store for our dinner, we headed up a mountainous hill (there are lots of these in New Zealand!) to our lodge at the top of the hill. After checking in, we were given half an hour or or so to get ready for the beach, even more of a rush for David, who had booked his very first surfing lesson! I, on the other hand, just headed down to the beach for a walk with a few people on the bus, as well as a sunbath in the moderately nice weather. David managed to slightly stand up on the board, not bad for the first time! The rest of the evening consisted of pool, a walk down the hill to see the glow worms in the bushes (yes, the same mountainous hill, which we then had to walk back up, in a night time darker than a black hole!), as well as a few card games. Although we were only there for less than 24 hours, it was nice to stay in the lodge, out of the way from the world.

On the way to Rotorua, there was a plan to make a few stops, as well as change driver (you generally have the same driver for the whole trip unless you choose to hop off, but as it’s the end of the summer, some of the drivers are finishing, so our driver swapped to another for the rest of the tour) so it was yet another early morning when we headed towards Waitomo, where we had booked a tour. They book most of your tours and accomodation as you go on the bus, so it’s pretty easy to organise without having to do any research really. We’d booked the ‘dry’ tour of the caves, which just meant it was the only tour that you didn’t go into the water, as some other people were abseiling into the caves. Our tour involved walking around 2 caves, and getting into a boat in one to see some glow worms. It was strange at the beginning of the tour, walking to the caves, so see a whole load of eels just in the stream below, actually making their way onto the grass(!?). We put our hard hats on, along with a head torch, to enter the nighttime. Once inside the cave, we walked some of the way, nearing stories of the farmers discovering the caves, before all turning our torches off to see our first glimpse of a glow worm (not actually worms..!) Our guide lit up the sticky residue of the ‘worms’ for us to see, which they used as a warning system for the approach of predators. We then hesitantly got into a boat, like a small life boat with 3 benches (there were 13 of us and then the driver so the boat journey could be likened to life in a sardine can), to be pulled by a string over the driver’s head down a small stream, still in the darkness with no torches. The only thing I could liken it to is the first movie of Harry Potter, where they take the boat up to Hogwarts and see the lights, as we too sat in the boat and were in awe of the millions of glowing lights not only covering the ceiling but also making up the shape of the walls as well. As with the night before in Raglan, I found it bizarre that the glow worms look just like fairy lights, or the lights of a Christmas tree, and I could almost have believed they were not real. We remained squashed in our tiny boat (my leg even became numb!) for a few journeys up and down the stream, but the sights of the glow worms reflected on the water as our eyes adjusted was worth it. There was a complete ban on cameras in this section, as the flash would ruin our pure view of the lights, but the company did send us some professionally made pictures of the glow worms to remember our time there.

Highlights: glow worm caves, the beach and nice weather in Raglan

Accomodation: Kariori Backpackers Lodge (Raglan)