August 10, 2005
I really can't get over this view. I took this picture this morning as we left our amazingly luxurious two-bedroom cottage. Man, I could stare at that all day long... the photos we've taken don't really capture it. Do we really have to leave?
There's nothing like a cup of hot coffee on a cold, clear morning. We had a nice breakfast prepared for us by Bruce, the husband and co-owner of the B&B. Bruce used to be a commercial fisherman in Auckland prior to starting the B&B with his wife three years ago. We asked him how they decided to open up a bed and breakfast. He said that he and his wife were at a bed and breakfast themselves up to the north, and they enjoyed it so much that they decided they should "get serious" about starting their own. I really admire folks who aren't afraid to dream extravagantly
and follow through with those dreams. Joining us for breakfast was our hosts' niece, who is only "four and three-quarters" years old, as she puts it. Little kids with New Zealand accents are pretty adorable. Funny thing, I've noticed that if someone with a fairly noticeable New Zealand accent speaks too quickly, I sometimes have absolutely no idea what they just said.
We took the ferry back across to greater Auckland. A very quick storm (like 5 minutes long) passed through as we were on the ferry... I took this picture because I love the color of the ocean when a storm is just starting to brew in the daytime. Something about the turmoil that is about to occur turns the water 
this incredible and enchanting color... the ocean becomes light and translucent, but also dark and brooding at the same time. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- in fact it's totally contradictory -- but you know it when you see it. Definitely one of my favorite colors.
Today's main objective was to get ourselves down to Waitomo for some cave exploring. Thanks to a shortcut suggested by one of our travel guides, we shaved almost a half hour off our traveling time and ended up first in Otorohanga, where the Kiwi House bird sanctuary is located. The Kiwi House is actually a pretty cool little place -- good for taking school children to see some interactive nature-type exhibits. We saw all sorts of birds and tree species, including the "Rubus Parvus", or "Creeping Lawyer" tree. 
Folks don't seem to like lawyer types much down here either. We really went to the Kiwi House to catch a glimpse of a lizard called the Tuatara, which is supposedly an actual dinosaur and the oldest species of animal in existence today. A dinosaur in New Zealand? But the exhibit was being rehabbed, so we didn't get to see it. Whatever, I'm pretty dubious of the whole thing.
About 15 minutes later, we arrived at the Waitomo Caves area, and not a moment too soon. We wanted to go with a cave exploration group that would give us a chance to abseil (rappel), rock climb, float on innertubes, crawl through narrow cave passages, and of course, see the glow worms! We ended up going with a guided tour called "Rap, Raft n Rock"... a really cool group that gives you a chance to pretty much do everything. We ended up getting there in the nick of time... like 10 minutes before the van left. We got into a rickety van with our guide Marcus, a funny New Zealander who knew a ton about all sorts of different things (biochemical brain effects of caffeine, geopolitical dynamics of produce and livestock import/export, contract law theory, etc.), and had the strangest resemblence to Tom Cruise, but only when he was wearing his helmet. Along with us on the tour were two corporte lawyers from Australia, a traveling student from the Falkan Islands and her Scottish military boyfriend (who could have led the tour himself).
I wish we could show all sorts of pictures of the expedition here, but we didn't want to take the digital camera on a soggy trip, and you can't take flash photography inside the caves anyway. But the experience was AWESOME. We started with a 27m abseil down into the cave opening. Then we hiked upstream with our lighted helmets until we got into a slightly larger cavern room, where we shut the lights off. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we suddenly saw glow worms everywhere, like stars in the sky. Glow worms aren't actually worms at all. They're arachnoluminescent sort of fellows, the larvae of a creature in the arachnid group. They glow like stars to make bugs fly upwards toward the cave ceiling (thinking they're outside), where they get trapped in the glow worm's web-like mucus extrusion. The glowing comes from the larvae's digestive process, where luminescent waste products are created. In essence, they glow cuz they're pooping. Yeah, sounds gross, but it's actually really cool.
KABOOM! A huge explosion filled the cavern. As it turns out, it was just our guide slamming his inner tube on the water as hard as he could... scared the crap out of us. But I guess it scared the "crap" out of the glow worms too, cuz it made them glow twice as bright. We hopped onto our inner tubes and floated down the cavern, gazing up at the glow worms above us in total darkness. Really pretty awesome stuff. We got to climb around all over the cavern, squeezing ourselves through all sorts of nooks and crannies. And to cap it all off, we rock climbed back up the 27 meter, nearly-vertical wall to get out of the cavern. Our legs felt like lead, with the soggy wetsuits and water-filled booties -- it felt so good when we got to change out of them -- but the whole trip was really really incredible! One of the best things about it was that we finally got to walk on and explore this amazing terrain that we've been seeing from a distance. It definitely had an adventurous, "Lord of the Rings" kind of feel to it all.
Tomorrow, we're off to Rotorua to sit in some hot springs and roll down a hill in a giant ball!
