Leaving Rotorua, we headed through the Waikato and King Country to a small town called Waitomo. We travelled here because Waitomo have a large selection of underground limestone caves, that people can access through various different entry points. Being the extreme 3 we are, Me, Dan and Dave opted for the abseiling and Caving combo, full day tour. This involved getting suited up in the latest of caving fashion wear, and then being driven through the countryside to what could be best described as a big hole in the ground.
Before throwing ourselves down the 150 meter hole, we were trained up on how to use the abseiling gear. As you can see from the photo's abseiling down a hill that steep wasn't very taxing, so before long we were standing by the entrance of the hole waiting to descend. Being the ever extreme being I was now becoming, i stepped up first and took the plunge. abseiling into a pitch black cave is an amazing experience, it was just a shame it ended so quickly.
After 15 minutes, everyone else had descended and were now being hooked onto a flying fox. (They attach you to a rope and you slide a further 100 meters down to another level, all in complete darkness!) It was here we were allowed to turn on our headlights so we could see for the first time where we were. We had landed on a small ledge about 3 meters above a flowing river. It was here we discovered the 20 or so inflated car inner tubes. It was on these we would now travel on down the river.
There isn't an easy way to the river, so 1 by 1 we jumped, inner tube under our rear end for protection, into the freezing water below. The sound of the crash echoing around the cave walls like something i had never heard before. We had all been warned about the temperature beforehand, but i wasn't expecting it to be this cold, even with a wetsuit on. I must actually admit that i did do the classic 'wee in the wetsuit trick', which gave me about 5 minutes of warmth, but it short lived!
After an hour travelling up and down the river we found ourselves at a number of waterfalls we now had to tackle, but this time instead of jumping down them like you would expect, we had to climb up them. Not the easiest thing to do when you have hundreds of litres of water falling down on you! Amazingly every one managed to get to the top without falling off, and after a few more tricky tight passages, we were back in daylight. It was hard to believe but we were actually underground for over 4 hours!
We were driven back to the centre to dry off, warm up and clean the mud off our now very dirty skin, before finally getting driven back to our hostel. On arrival, we were pleasantly surprised that Kiwi Experience had booked us into the newly opened YHA hostel. As you can see from the photo, we all stayed in chalets, which were undoubtably the nicest rooms we stayed in all month in NZ. Best of all the price was about 7 pounds. Not bad considering we had 2-bed rooms which weren't bunk beds for a change!
Seeing as we were in the middle of nowhere we decided to throw a small gathering at our chalet as we had a small garden area. The small gathering soon turned into nearly every one on the bus and local kiwi's that were passing during the night. All was going well until about 4 am, when a rather annoyed local man, deciding rather than asking us politely to be quiet, decided to instead kick the door down and tell us to shut it, or "he would personally break the guitar in question, in half!" Time for bed then!
Joke of the Day
A man walked into the produce section of a supermarket in Sydney and asked to buy "half" a head of luttuce. The New Zealand lad working in that department told him that they only sold whole heads of luttuce. The man was insistent that the boy ask his manager about the matter.
Walking into the back room, the boy said to his manager, "some arsehole wants to buy a half a head of luttuce."
As he finished his sentence, he turned to find the man standing right behind him, so he added, "and this gentleman kindly offered to buy the other half."
The manager approved the deal and the man went on his way.
Later, the manager sought out the boy and said, "I was impressed with the way you got yourself out of that situation earlier. We like people who think on their feet here. Where are you from, son?
"Wellington, New Zealand, sir," the boy replied.
"Why did you leave New Zealand?" the manager asked.
The boy said, "Sir, because there's nothing over there but whores and rugby players."
"Really!" said the manager, brusquely. "My wife is a Kiwi!"
The boy replied ... " No sXXt??? Who did she play for?"
More thumbnails ...
54 votes 
This is a top pick!
