This Day
started early but it felt so good to get a full nights sleep. Even though with
the time difference we were waking up at 5am and feeling like it was time to
go.
We
headed out cause Tasha has us on a very tight schedule. Justified, we have some
awesome plans for this day!
Our
first destination was Hamilton, we wanted to do a session in the New Zealand
Temple. Driving there we were not sure if the GPS was bringing us to the right
place because we thought the temple would be in a more populated area but we
were mostly driving through farmland. The area was beautiful though, there were
green hills everywhere and they were sectioned off with real hedge rows! Like
in England but greener!
We
arrived at the temple just in time, the temple reminded me a lot of the
temple in Switzerland but this one didn't have a Moroni on the top. The temple
was really pretty inside too, Murals on the walls were all in high tones so it
looked like you were walking in a misty tropical paradise. Absolutely
beautiful.
Keeping
to schedule, we headed toward Waitomo, as we drove we saw a Kiwi house along
the way which was actually close to our hotel so we decided to go their
tomorrow. Look forward to that :) We also stopped for lunch and tried food that
is very popular in New Zealand. Dad got some fish and chips from this sketchy
corner store and Mom and Tasha went to a Minced pie place. I also got something
from the minced pie place. Normally I wouldn't go near a minced pie but mine
had a nice dollop of mashed potato that made it look quite appetizing. Turned
out really tasty too! We got a couple of caramel pie desserts which we all
shared cutting them into quarters.
On the
road, I am still amazed at how rural everything is, there are farmlands
everywhere. With all kinds of animals. So many cows, I'm reminded of Idaho!
There are even cows that look like oreo cookies because they are all black
except for one large stripe down their middle. We also saw a ton of sheep,
donkeys, pigs, chickens, and horses, and basically all the horses had
raincoats on. A little weird but maybe they needed it.
We
continued onto our journey and arrived at Waitomo Caves. This was amazing! We
went to two caves the first was Ruakuri, and the second was the Glowworm Caves.
Both were spectacular!
At
Ruakuri, we were able to walk through these ancient cave system which had
amazing rock formations. I like our guide, Sam, he was very down to earth. He
shared a lot of great information including the story behind the cave's name:
The
cave's name means dog spirit cave; the story goes that a local Maori war party
was passing the mouth of the cave when a group of dogs ran out and scared the
group back to the village. The chief thinking that it wasn't a good thing that
his war party would be scared so easily he sent the group back to kill the dogs
and to bring them back. They did that and the chief skinned the dogs and
created a cloak that he would wear when he went into battle. While wearing the
cloak he never lost a battle. And when he passed away his remains and the cloak
were returned to the cave entrance.
We
continued in the cave where we got to see some unique rock formation, including
curtain stalactites, coral stalagmites and our first glimpses of glow
worms. Which are actually maggots that glow only because their poop has
bio-luminesces and the reason they glow is because they want to lure other bugs
up to them. Together they look like the night sky (but green) other little
flies see that and fly up to them and then get caught it the maggot's silk
string they let down. When their caught the maggot pulls them us and devours
them by burrowing into the poor flies brains. Yeah, cute glow worms huh?
Curtain stalactites
here you can see the strings (couldn't get a pic of the glow,sorry)
As we
continued we got to a chamber called the 'pretties'; yeah very creative name
but it was quite cool. Also side note, we were not allowed to touch anything!
there was a $10,000 fine if we in any way damaged the formations. So look, don't
touch!
After
Ruakuri, we did the tour of the actually glow worm cave, the Waitomo Cave. And
this one was cool! We started out walking into this huge chamber about the size
of a cathedral and they would actually have concerts in the place because it was
so good at that sound thingy. Whatever lets get to the glow worm part. We had
to get in a boat and we were told we had to be very quiet. Our guide, Chris
(yeah new guide, the caves had two different owners) pulled us along the
underground river, we were in pitch blackness except for the millions of glow
worms above us. It was amazing, they were covering the ceiling and it was so
quiet and dark. There were a couple of areas we had to duck to get through
which just made that much more an adventure. I tried to take pictures of it but
yeah they just turn out black. Sorry.
We were
the last group that went through and it was a good thing too cause, it started
to downpour again, and I mean buckets of water was coming out of the sky. We
headed to our hotel and looked for a place to eat. We finally found a
Chinese take out. I got some good wonton soup. We also went to the grocery
store, one of the few places that doesn't close so early. I was able to find
Manuka honey, which is a New Zealand specialty. It has a different taste to it,
kinda tart. Also we went crazy buying up medicine, I'm still sick at this point
and have had enough of it.
Till
tomorrow, Adventure is out there!
No comments:
Post a Comment