We spent the night in Auckland being harassed by the bar staff wanting us to participate in the jelly wrestling contest, which we were assured was not sleezy at all...
Fiona was very keen to take part so long as she won the $150 prize money purely because she wants an iPad!! After several free shots and no participants the event was cancelled. shame.
one of the girls had gone for a wander and not returned by morning however had assured us all that her new friend would give her a lift to hot water beach in the morning...
Our accommodation at hot water beach was five star, it must be new as everything was immaculate. and to top it off there was a 'bouncing pillow' see pictures! after a quick change we walked to the beach to dig our hole...or time it just right to arrive when the boys had finished digging a massive pool with room for 6 ladies!
I cant remember exactly how it works but its something to do with tectonic plates and the earths core making the water really hot. it's unbearable to sit in so you have to make sure there's a stream if sea water going in to it. We had a german coupe next to us who kept damming up our pool stopping the hot water flowing in. we did not like these germans. afterwards we had a quick shower at the hostel before our bus driver Dave (or cuddles apparently!?) took us for a walk. we took a cliff walk to Cathedral Cove. this was an absolutely stunning beach and a beautiful walk with lots of interesting scenery. grace really embraced the atmosphere and expressed her inner self...
In total this was about a 2hour trip. we arrived back at the hostel about 7...for more fish and chips!!
We left early Friday morning to head down to Waitomo. along the way we stopped at a redundant gold mine, sadly no gold but we did see lots of glow worms!!
Our activity for the day was called The Black Labyrinth. We dropped the first group off at the centre then carried on to our hostel to chill out in the sun before our turn later that afternoon.
more wet wetsuits, boots and helmets (with lamps on) aswell as a rubber ring. we climbed in to the cave, both terrified, but of course brave. the trail lasted for just over an hour. we were about 70m underground, most parts we could walk through, very few times did we have to duck or squeeze. there were a few small waterfalls which u had to stand on the edge of backwards, hold your rubber ring around your bum and jump backwards. our group seemed to be surprisingly good at this! part way through we sat down in a tunnel and were given a chocolately marshmallowly strawberry bar thing and told to switch all our lights off. we looked up to what looked like a sky of green stars: glow worms...or so we thought! our guide told us about how the glow you actually see is the maggots poo! which attracts potential food to it to be eaten! she also told us that the maggots have sex for 48hours then the males die...all the girls laughed.
we carried on through the cave, you forget how far underground you are and just enjoy the adventure. nearer the end of the trip there was a long section of water, we sat in our tubes with our lights off, holding into each others feet as our guide pulled us through. it was much like being on a lazy river lit by glow warms, very relaxing...except we were all FRIGGIN FREEZING!!!
it was a fab activity, definitely recommend it, just don't let the first little hole to enter the cave get the better of you!!

We spent the evening in the hostel, which was really nice and the kitchen was actually clean!! we also made good use of the free food shelf-peppers, onions, salad, cottage cheese, biscuits, milk, dolmio!

A highlight of the evening was using the washing machine and tumble dryer! I would say simple things, but we hit a pretty low point a few days later...