So after Rotorua we headed to Waitomo, which is well known for its caves and glow worms.

We booked the 3 hour labyrinth tour and was dropped off before making our way to our hostel - me and Dave used the same bikini's and shorts from hydro-zorbing earlier so those clothes weren't exactly the most comfortable but....we then had to put on a two piece wet suit and booties which not only were wet and cold but smelt off wee (may have been from the damp water in the caves but still.....) so along with our sexy helmet including a torch and white wellies we made our way down to the river. They got us to choose our rings (the bigger the arse the bigger the tube! mine was the littlest one they did obviously!! ;-) After getting the rings they needed us to do a test jump into the river with the tubes to make sure we would be ok once in the cave. Didn't look too bad until the first girl jumped in and all of her including her head went under! Liz went first, then me, then Dave and Rich - we all got soaked and the water was freezing! The guides then took this opportunity to tell us about the massive eels that live in the cave's and that it was also their mating season - no problems until they said the eels can sometimes mistake your leg in the wetsuit as another eel! Gross! We headed for the caves which were pitch black so on went the head torches - at first we just took a walk through the caves (we all managed to hit our heads and fall down the holes) eventually we came to one of the waterfalls which is when they ask you to put your back to it and the ring up to your butt then jump off into the darkness, I wasn't to keen on this (having been put off with the jump outside) and manged to not jump far enough and therefore hit my arse on the rock! We then went for a paddle in the rings which was hard - especially as i was trying to keep myself as much out of the water as poss to avoid the large eels in it - then they asked us to turn our headtorches off and hold on to each others foot in a line - this is one they took us along to see all the glow worms, the only way to descibe it is like looking at the stars in the sky - there was hundreds and we went along for about 10 min. After that came time for some more waterfall jumping, I managed to avoid the rock this time - after some more paddling they decided to play a game and asked everyone to reach up in the air towards the stalagmites above then pop themselves out of their rings - I wasnt to keen on the idea and thought it was a little strange so decided to stay put - Rich however went along and quickley found out they were playing a joke as this was the deapest part of the caves and so they just sank! - It rook Rich ages to get back in his ring. Once all back and ready to go they played another game and told us all to turn off our lights and make our way out basically blindfolded, as well as saying good luck! I'd had enough of putting my hands in the water and held onto Rich - eventually I lost hold of him and had to drag myself along (im so lazy!) Then came the light of day and we knew we was safe! ha - We headed back, had a quick shower and made our way to our hostel.

I wasnt expecting much as I knew it was in the middle of nowhere but it was actually a really good hostel, somehow me and Dave had a room and Rich and Liz had their own next door - a proper shower (well as good as a backpacker one is going to be!) and we made our way down to the pub (the only one in the villiage!) for the BBQ they were putting on. BBQ was good - the boys ate way to much and we manged to catch up with Ben whom we met in Oz - me and Liz played a drinking game 'I never' for a while but eventually we all went to bed, for about 30 minutes Rich was singing which im sure most of the other rooms could here too! ha

The next morning we had a lay in for once then headed for a angora rabbit shearing shed? The rabbits need shearing to stay alive otherwise they get to hot so the women shear them in the same sort of way as sheep? Very bizare but they seemed to care for the rabbits so all good - after this we headed for our next stop Taupo - home of our SKY DIVE!!!