24/7/9 Waitomo

We joined a new bus with a driver called Dallas. the bus was alot more busy than our previous one and a lot younger crowd but all seemed ok. We travelled to Agropark where there was an optional agricultural show which basically consisted of lots of sheep and sheepdogs on the stage. It was pretty funny seeing all the sheep paraded onto the stage lokking thoroughly bored...poor things. The farmer was quite entertaining and he sheared a sheep and milked a cow. It was definately the most bizarre tourist attraction we have seen so far!!! There was a very cute lot of puppies and lambs in the nursery though which were really lovely.We were shown a sheepdog trial before getting back on the bus to cross to the orther side of the road to a part called Agroventures with lots of adrenaline rides. We signed up to do the Swoop which is a 40 foot swing. We were dressed in hang gliding suits and tied together befroe being attached to the swing and dragged 40 foot into the air. Phil had the job of pulling a rip cord which let us drop 40feet don before the ropes took our weight and swung us back and forth for a few minutes. What a great rush of adrenaline...it was really good fun. We went straight to Waitomo after a quick lunch. It had been rainignheavily and Dallas was making calls on the way to see if the afternoon excursions down the glow worm caves could still be done. We had booked to do an activity called the Abyss which was a 6 hour trip of abseilling, tubing on inner tubes down the underground river and generally clambering underground up waterfalls and through some pretty small gaps in the dark. Dallas got the go ahead late in the morning so we were off this afternoon to explore underground. After booking into a really nice hostel we were collected to go caving. we were given wetsuits, harnesses and helmets and then given a snazzy pair of swimmers each to put on over our wetsuits.....stylish. We then had a few minutes to practice abseiling before being lowered via a 40foot abseil underground into the limestone cave system. It was amazing down there with miles of tunnels and cave systems. It was a wet system so there were rivers and waterfalls running through and around the rocks. We travelled along the caves and tunnels exploring with only head torches for light. At one stage our guides Vashti and Snappy attached us to a zip line and made us turn out all the lights before sending us flying accross a cave. They let off air bombs whilst we flew accross which made us all jump...Liz didn't get a bomb but the others all yelled and shouted boo as she came to the end!!! We sat and had hot chocolate inside the cave before carrying on. We sat a while in the dark to look at the glow worms all over the walls and roof of the caves. They were really pretty and looked like stars or fairy lights. We were then told to jump off a ledge into the river on our inner tubes but Liz bottled it and walked to the edge and lowered herself in. The water was not as cold as she thought though and we spent quite a while floating along looking at the glowing worms. they attract their prey using the glow and then trap them in dangling webs. They are the larvae of a fly that only lives for about three days..rubbish!!! It was amazing to see them though. We emerged from the caves after climbing up through three raging waterfalls into the darkness and stars which was a bit weird as we lost all track of time in the caves. Back at the caving office we changed and had hot showers and got bowls of hot soup which really warmed us all up. We had booked a barbecue at a local pub and a few drinks before bed.