Day two, Waitomo

So today we drove through Whatawhata and ate dinner at Huhu. Kind of reminds me of the Doublemint twins, doubledouble:)

Speaking of driving, not only did I get to really start driving on the wrong side of the road, Mother Nature decided to add a downpour to the mix. The 2 hour drive to Waitomo took 2 and a half hours. I'm starting to get used to the driving, but even the New Zealanders seem to need to be reminded to drive on the left. There are signs and arrows everywhere reminding them.

Our big activity for the day was black water rafting in the glow worm caves. After suiting up in wetsuits and helmets, we chose inner tubes and learned how to jump backwards off a ledge, into the river, landing in the inner tube. I was first and very surprised at how cold the water was. Once everyone tried it, we headed for the caves. In the cave, We walked and crouched and tripped our way through near blackness, with pretty strong currents of water rushing round our feet, followed by backwards jumps, with our bottoms stuck in the rings over 2 or 3 foot waterfalls.

After this we took a rather leisurely float through pitch black glow worm caves, which is basically not worms at all, but mosquito like maggots with glowing poo! Our guide told us all about the glow worms and summed it up by saying "So guys, to sum it all up you have paid to come and see shiny shit carnivore maggots that shag themselves to death".

On our way back to the store, our guide pointed out a restaurant and said they had excellent steak. So, after checking in at our lodging, Cristina and I went back and had dinner at the Huhu restaurant. Since we didn't have reservations, we had to try to find seats in the bar. We asked a couple if we could join them. The couple was a man and woman from Germany and Switzerland. They had been traveling around New Zealand for a few weeks.