We left early at 7:30am and drove back through the hills. We were heading from the east coast to almost the west coast. It was a long scenic drive. We stopped at a supermarket for lunch. There we bought ingredients for dinner that night. We carried on and arrived in Waitomo just after 1pm. We checked into our hostel called The Kiwipacker and got ready for our afternoons activity. We were doing black water rafting. This involved floating through caves in the dark on a rubber tube.

We got picked up at 3pm and taken to the rafting centre. We got given a brown fleecey jumper, a wet suit, rubber boots and a jacket. We went to a changing room to get ready. It wasnt very pleasant as the wet suit was cold and wet. Eventually when we had pulled ourselves into them we went back outside. We then got given some wellies to put on top of our other boots and a helmet with a lamp on. We pased for a photo before getting in the van and driving to the caves.

When we got there we had to choose our rings. We then practised some techniques. The first one was holdingthe tube behind us so our bums stuck through the hole in the middle. The second one was making a caterpiller on the floor. We did this by putting our feet under the armpits of the person in front of us. The third thing was practising jumping backwards into the water below. This was to prepare us for jumping off waterfalls. As you landed you did get splashed in the face and the water was really cold. We then climbed out of the river and made our way down to the caves. We had to climb down some rocky steps, through a gap in the cliff into a water filled cave.

First we sat down on a rock edge to get our instructions. We could see various limestone formations and stalactites and stalagmites. We walked in calf high water until we came to a bit deep enough for us to float in. At one point we had to lean back so we were almost laying down in the tube as the ceiling was so low and would bang our heads. We came to our first waterfall and took turns to jump backwards into the water below. We floated further down the river until we stopped in a tunnel bit. There we were given a chocolate fish to eat to keep our energy up. The guides then told us to switch the lamps on our helmets off. On the roof of the tunnel we could see tiny blue glowing specks. They were glow worms. A magot type creature that sends a hanging thread down to catch flies. It is actually their poo that glows due to a chemical reaction, this attracts the flies! We carried on to another part of the cave where we would see even more glow worms. To get there we had to jump off another waterfall. It was slightly bigger than the first one. When we had jumped we held onto a rope attached to the cave wall and made our catterpiller formation. When we had all jumped the waterfall and got in line we once again turned our lights off and floated down the river in one big long line. The ceiling this time was covered in blue glowing specks. It looked just like a night sky. After about 10 minutes like this we came to a part where we needed to walk / climb over rocks. We had a short break for a photo before getting back on our tubes. The guide then said "lets play a game, its called Who can find their way out of the cave in the dark?" This may sound hard but it wasnt too bad as you just had to keep going forwards. It was completely dark and you couldnt see a thing but you could hear everyone and occassionally you would bump into the ring infront of you. Eventually we could see daylight and headed towards that. We climbed out ofthe cave and back into the van. At the office we had a nice hot shower and then they gave us some soup and a bagel. It had been a really exciting afternoon. Back at the hostel we made our dinner and went to the bar next door called Curly's to watch the Wales rugby match. Unfortunately they lost.