Day 362/363: A Long Expected Party

We took January 6th easy since our flight left at 12:45pm. We dropped off our camping gear at the Salvation Army, returned the rental car, and flew up to Auckland. Stopped by a Chinese and Japanese store for some food goodies and relaxed the rest of the evening in preparation.

While Mary loves Lord of the Rings, we have an even bigger fan to pick up from the airport: Doyle, Kieran’s roommate of 5 years!! He flew all the way from Baltimore to join us on our last bit of New Zealand. We pumped him with coffee and hit the road. Stopped at the Thirsty Weta for a pint 15 minutes from Waitomo Caves.

Today’s activity to keep him awake through the jet lag was to go black water rafting which is to tube in a cave. "Waitomo" comes from the Māori words wai, water and tomo, hole or shaft. The local Māori people knew about the caves for a century before showing them to English colonists in 1884. The cave is known for its bioluminescent glow worms which are actually little fly larvae.

We suited up and prepared our silliest faces for the pictures they would take throughout the journey. Activities included jumping backwards off water falls, climb through nooks, turning all the lights off to look at the worms, and floating in river streams. It was after the activity Doyle told us he hates really small spaces. We were provided a hot shower and tomato soup post journey and a group of British girls bought the photos and shared the link with us.

We continued down the road to Te Kuiti, our hotel stay, and ventured to the only open restaurant in town. Hamburgers, wonton soup, and chicken sandwich for the win. We also found the only open bar in town and drank beer while the locals gambled and wondered what we were doing in their bar 🤣

Hotel: Motel Kuiti

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Waitomo Caves
Te Kuiti
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