Waitomo Caves and Rotorua 3/8/13

So we found out in the newspaper that the traffic jam we were stuck in yesterday in Auckland was a historic, front page, once-in-history traffic event...aren't we lucky? It helped to make yesterday a 10 hour car day, with us calling the Huhu restaurant to beg them not to close. We were so hungry.

After a night in a local motel and a yummy breakfast, we arrived at the Black Water Rafting tour at 8:45 am. They outfitted us with wetsuits, booties, helmets, harnesses, and other "abseiling" equipment. After extensive training in descent control, rope safety, etc., we abseiled down 100 feet into a small opening into a pitch-black cave, with only head lamps. There were eight people: 2 Swedish young men, a German 20 year old couple and the 4 of us. It was so scary to "sit" in the harness suspended in space over a hole in the brush...

We waited for all to assemble, looking up at glow worms on the ceiling of the cave and then began the 5 hour adventure. After navigating a narrow passage, they hooked Terry up and away she sailed into the dark on a "flying fox" ( zip line)! Again, the heart is pumping. 4 more hours of walking along uneven cave floors, jumping with inner tubes 15 feet into a crazy cold underground river, pulling upstream on ropes, hooking feet under shoulders as the guide walked us in the river under thousands of glow worms.

We then tossed our tubes up to another guide and walked through the river; falling, crawling through tunnels, diving with belly flops, climbing up waterfalls... It was so much fun!!

The water was freezing and we got banged up, but what an experience. You end up crawling out of a waterfall tunnel and hiking through wild blackberries, where the van is parked. They take you back to base, where you take a hot shower and have soup and bagels and chat with your guides.

We jumped in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours to Rotorua; famous for it's hot pools, Maori cultural shows and geysers. We went up to one geyser site, but it looked like Disneyland on a busy day, so we went to the restaurant- bar avenue and sat outside for hours watching 2 guys singing, drinking beer and wine, having appetizers and splitting dinner. Terry and Suzanne even went up to help a farmer from Minnesota sing "Yesterday" as a public service...

Rolled back to our motel and all are done, even though it is only 8:30! The waiter tonight was a local, so he drew a map of some free hot pools to try tomorrow on our way to Wellington. Another long car trip tomorrow before our last night on the North Island.