Fifth Leg: Part II: Waitomo Caves

Will getting set to abseil
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Getting to Waitomo was interesting. I had put off having to rent a car for almost the entirety of my trip because i was worried about how difficult it might prove to be. However, it  really was the only way to get there from Wellington, and I figured it would provide me with some scenic bucolic (see Ted, I'm inserting GRE words, you should look up) views of the North Island as I was not otherwise going to see much of the place.

I was a little nervous starting out, what with the traffic coming on my right, but I continued to improve and become more comfortable as I went on. I even did round abouts without difficulty. Turns were ok as long as i  concentrated at every intersection and reminded myself to end up on the left. There was one nasty episode early on when I forgot this handy centering thing. I was nonchalantly driving down the road, when , what do I see, but a car coming at me, in my lane. My first thought is, "What is that idiot doing in my lane?" But of course, that idiot was me... Needless to say, I did manage to avoid an accident. Otherwise things went pretty smoothly aside from me getting pulled over by the cops an hour later in a different town. Apparently someone had complained that some car matching my description was going over the center line in the entry to town and they needed to investigate. Police. Never mind the other cars that are going 120 km/hr. Anyways, they didn't ask if I had been drinking, instead they asked how long I had been driving and if I had had caffeine... and then they had me say my name and address into a breathalyzer. I wonder if it then occurred to them that I was an American, and that maybe there could have been other reasons why someone would drive close to the center of the road aside from being inebriated (look that one up too, Ted). Luckily, he let me off with a warning. i guess the hardest thing about the driving in a different country was that I was on the other side of the car. Normally I use the  side of the road on the right to keep my car positioned in the lane, but I guess i was inching too close to the center in doing the same thing here.

If I had money, it would be a wonderful place to play golf-- ok, ok, if I had money AND could play golf, it would be, anyway:)

taking a break
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The drive up was Waitomo itself was nice apart from my run in with the law. The hills were lush and green and there were lots of sheep (Surprise, surprise). I will say that It was all very beautiful, but it did lack some variety. The small towns were fun to pass through, but they tended to blend together. I did get to stop at a national park on the way, which featured two mountains that were quite beautiful. If you look at the pictures, you might recognize one of them as Mount Doom (insert ominous music here). I wish I had had more time to explore it, but I had to head on because it was a 6-7 hour drive to Waitomo from Wellington. I did take a fleeting glimpse at the entrance to the park and it's not what I expected. I had thought to see a small museum or nature lodge and some trails. While I did see a few trails, the most prominent features of the entrance are an fancy chateau and the neighboring golf course. If I had money, it would be a wonderful place to play golf-- ok, ok, if I had money AND could play golf, it would be, anyway:)

Picture coming out at end of caves
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I continued up to Watomo, stopping along the way to take as many pictures as I dared, and arrived just at dusk, before it was dark (N. B.: this is important for later).  The Bed & Breakfast I stayed in was the nicest accommidation I've had to date (excepting the Meyricks, of course). The couple who owned it were very friendly and set me up in this nice little private cottage room that was situated amidst their well-kept back gardens.  They even made me these fantastic biscuits for tea!

Picture coming out at end of caves
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I went out to the local bar that night, which was ok, though there wasn't much going on. They had a juke box that was playing while at the same time, their tvs were showing muted music videos of different songs. It was rather disjointed and I wuold have definitely actually have preferred sports coverage of-- anything -- over that. The decor was interesting with purple painted walls with animal heads (deer and other wildlife) mounted as well-- I guess it was an effort to appeal to both genders?? I did try the Speight's line of beers-- not my fav, but passable. Iwas going to do a glow-worm walk at night in some local caves, but was tired and opted to veg out in front of my private tv with my tea and biscuits, and fell asleep watching a grade C movie about Tommy Lee Jones and some cheerleaders....

Climbing up waterfalls
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In the morning I got up early enough to try the local walk, which wasn't bad. All the pictures you see of caves that aren't dark are actually from that walk as we weren't allowed to bring cameras into the caves. The caving trip was quite nice. We had two very energetic guides, Snappy and Mashy--whose names should warrant them as extras if Snow White should ever be missing some Dwarves. We were a smaller group, so we were really able to pack a lot in. We started by abseiling in, which was a bit scary at first, but since I could control the speed pretty well, it wasn't bad at all. There was one point where my rope got stuck, but otherwise, it was pretty smooth going. We also did some carabining? where we swooped down in th pitch black while hanging from a cable-- it was pretty spooky and we had to yell so they cuold figure out where we were and could stop our descent before we went splat into the wall.

What are we getting into?
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We followed that up with some rafting on the inner tubes with our lights off so we could see the "glow worms". The paddling was a little annoying because there was a limited current and the water was ice cold. The "glow worms" were kind of like little green dots that I tended to try to make constellations out of. The guide told us the truth after we had gotten there-- there really are no such thing as glow worms. He went into this whole long pseudo-scientific speil about the life cycle of flies from maggots. It would be understandably bad for marketing if people flocked to see the glow maggots... if that were the whole truth. In actuality, the maggots produce flourescent areas from their waste as well as long sticky translucent strands and try to lure would-be prey to them. Luckily, we were rafting about 3-4 meters below, so we weren't in any danger:). We also did some crawling through narrow regions of the cave to get to places where we could climb up vertically through waterfalls, which was pretty incredible.

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ON the trip back I took the slightly longer coastal route, which was ok. I saw a few more mountains, and a few beaches. As it grew darker, I realized that my headlights were not functioning properly, though, so I had to pull over early and was forced to spend the night in a small town. Thi wasn't bad, except it meant I had less time in Wellington, which is a place that wuold be nice to go back to.