We weren't leaving until 8am so we had little lie in then we jumped on the bus and headed to Waitomo.
The bus pulled into the car park to the Waitomo cave tours and we all jumped off to pay. It was $175pp to abseil into a cave, crawl through tunnels, see loads of glow worms and climb back out. We booked on! Once paid they put us on a minibus and took us 10mins away from the main office to the caves. Whilst driving through the town the tour guide told us the population of Waitomo is 47! She told us about the only hotel in the place that was built specifically for the queen, when she visited in the 60s. The queens never been back and the hotels never been refurbished. It's meant to be haunted so people come from around the world to find ghosts. This was when Lee shouted out.. 'To fight goats?'..... Honestly?! Haha the lady said yes people come to a haunted hotel to fight goats....
The place is riddled with underground caves all formed from limestone.
As soon as we arrived at the cave we were kitted up with a wet suit, helmet and harness. They gave us a little demonstration on how to abseil then told us to get in the cave.
We had to go one at a time. We attached our selves to the rope then dropped off the edge so we were dangling over a black hole. Lee went first and disappeared into the darkness then it was my turn. It was hard work because it was a long drop and you weren't sure where the bottom was. I got to the bottom and found Lee! I felt like Spider-Man! After a crawl through a tunnel (on your bum because it was a tiny tunnel and you had to be feet first) we got to the next abseil. This was much smaller but it lead to the waterfall. When I abseiled down I stumbled at the bottom and got plummeted with water. After the abseiling we had to scramble through tiny tunnels like action man, through puddles, being lead by the torch on our head. We came to what we thought was a dead end but it wasn't. We had to climb it. I said to Lee 'right, the way to do this is to think.... What would Jamie do?' Jamie you would be so proud. We were like ninjas! A few people were struggling but not us. We had ladder crossings and more climbs. At one point, probably mid way through we were told to turn off our lights and look up. It was like a night sky full of lights. Glow worms were everywhere. She told us that really these lights are maggots. They glow, from their bum, for 9 months then rap them selves with the dangly silk thread that they've had dangling down catching food, and make a cocoon. Once free from the cocoon they have 3 days to make friends and have babies before dying. (They can't eat once they pull the thread up). An older lady in the group, called Brenda (she was one of those who thought saying 'I need a beer and a fag' made her down with the kids...she was from the Isle of man and had a deep kind of voice... Lee loved her - like nails on a chalk board) anyway she turned around and said to the guide 'so the 3 days are for the glow worms to procreate?' The guide said 'yeah but I prefer to say sh*gging' - boom. Our Brenda's face dropped ha.
When we finally scrambled out of cave towards the light all the adrenaline disappeared and the walk from the cave mouth to the changing rooms was hard. Both me and lee had to stop every couple of steps to breath. It was an all over body work out. The gum boots we had were full of water, making them heavier, the wet suit was at its wettest so we were carrying extra weight and it was raining outside. After the massive 100m hike we stripped in the showers, put warm clothes on and were took back to the main office. Lee warmed himself up with a well deserved pie whilst I had a well deserved hot chocolate with marshmallows! After that we got on our Bus heading to Taupo.
At Taupo we pulled into the car park of where we were staying. We'd paid $80 earlier to stay here with a Mauri family, learn their culture, have some tea and breakfast in the morning. Ruth and Fatty got on the bus to welcome us then asked the girls to get off first and make our way to the sacred house. We had to take our shoes off then take a seat from back to front. The lads followed us in, sitting in front of us, then the welcome ceremony began. The chief stood and spoke to us in Mauri then translated. We all had to stand then touch noses twice, with the Mauri family, to become apart of their family. We had to say 'Kia ora' which is a traditional hello/welcome. I got all flustered trying to remember the Kia ora part and accidentally made a kissing sound as I touched noses with Slim, another Mauri man. He took that as me wanting to be his wife and gave me a huge hug then told everyone I'd kissed him. Then he noticed I was blushing so he told everyone too. Then he noticed I'd gone maroon.... Maan. Dad I blame your blushing gene! Haha
After I'd cooled down and they'd closed the ceremony with a prayer we headed for food. The food place was like a hall with long tables so we queued for our chicken, veg, peas, spuds and gravy. Garlic bread was waiting for us at the table so we stuffed out faces until we were full. It was positively delightful. I weren't even bothered that there were bones because Lee was sat right next to me so he could faff about with the bones full of chicken after a little scape onto his plate. Whilst we were eating one of the family members played guitar and sang. He asked for different countries to get up and sing with him. When he came to England we had to sing 'Hey Jude' then he went onto 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds' then he finished with 'sweet chariot'. We rocked it.
After tea we all say at the other end of the hall and watched the family tell us stories through music and dance. They did the Haka! We were split boys v girls so the boys could learn the Haka and the girls could learn a girly dance with balls on string.... The boys came back in the room, took there tips off and did the angry dance, rolling their eyes and sticking their tongue out. I had to mine to Lee 'look angry!' He was smiling and laughing whilst the Mauri next to him looked like he was being choked.
Lee's going to jump in here to tell you what he was told the Haka meant:-
Hello! The story is of a Mauri warrior who was being chased by his own tribe for disrespecting the ways of the tribe. He ran to an island in a lake below (Mt Doom) where he met a Mauri woman who hid him in food store. As he looked up he could see the woman sitting on top of the store and began to pray. The woman wasn't wearing clothes so the Haka is basically saying 'come here woman, bring her in, bring her in'...
Hola it's back to me. Yeah so the Haka's rude.
After the dancing we went back to the 'sacred house' were a mattress and sleeping bag had been lay down for everyone. Ruth and her uncle came in and told us Mauri stories about sky father and earth mother and traditions then we lights went off and 40 bed dorm went to sleep.