May 26 - Waitomo... possibly day 7

We leave the bustling metropolis that is Auckland and head south. After multiple plan changes we have made the executive decision to head to the Waitomo caves. One of the highlights we both have been looking forward to since we started reading those travel books. More on the details later...
The bus ride was not too bad. Once out of the city scenery improved. Rolling hills with green grass, green trees, and hundreds upon hundreds of cows. "Cows?!" you say? Yes, cows. The country reknowned for its sheeping farming is covered in cows. The sheep are mainly further south where the grass is less lush. Much of the grass in the north is considered to be too good to waste on sheep, and more worthy of the cows. The kiwis may love their sheep (no jokes please), but they don't love them THAT much.
Waitomo, a different place. I would not be surprised if Waitomo's population numbered around 50 people. Even then it sounds like a bit of an overestimate. The entire community seems to thrive off of the tourist dollar, booming thanks to the naturally occuring glowworms that habituat hundreds of local caves. Which in reality are found all over the country, this place just happens to be their paradise.
The starkness of the village is particularily jolting when juxtiposed (oh yes I went there) against Auckalnd and Sydney, our only basis' of comparison. Thankfully being a tourist hotspot there are plenty of things to see and do within a 10 min walking distance.
For our first activity of the day, which was delightfuly free, I must ask Connie to skip down past it to the paragraph marked with an asterix. I have deemed this a continuation of the "Connie safe zone".
Ok, now that she's gone .... ;)
This town does not have your usual sheep shearing (perhaps there are not that many sheep???), but Abysinian Rabbit shearing. It is basically done via tying the rabbit up by all 4 legs and placing them onto a contraption that spins a creepily looks like the rack. No not a rack of sumptuous ribs, the torture device that was in vogue for a while in the middle ages. Having the rabbit in such a posture made it easy to spin and shear with very large, and very scary looking electric shears. The whole process looked rather dramatic and traumatizing for the animal. They tried to tell us that the rabbits enjoyed the process but this was a little hard to believe since it was struggling to free itself. This leads me to a strong believe that rabbits do not enjoy S&M. All said and done if you're in the village than do it just because you can. Be warned though, they will attempt to sell you ludicrously priced rabbit fur hats and sweaters.
*Connie Safe Zone* - Back to the hostel to get out of the drizzle and await the door-to-door pick-up involved in our next slightly pricier venture. Or roommate of the night, Sylvia (we think that was her name), a really nice quiet German girl trying to rush through the entire country in a short time span just like us.
Ah yes, Rap, Raft & Rock... a Waitomo caves adventure led by a guy that we swear was permanently doped and fathered by a lemur. When you think about it, this should really make the day that much more exciting... and for some reason we trusted him not to let us die. When he arrived to pick us up in a beat up 4WD - had an endless supply of 'holyshit bars' - and took us to the company headquarters (someone's house), the sketch factor was high. We felt a little better to find out we were not alone on this death defying trip. Two guys from the US (Tom from Arizona and John from California) had made a last minute booking to join us. We started our 5 hour adventure off with a wetsuit fitting, hardhat
(with headlamp), rock climbing harness and some abseiling lessons, and after 5 minutes of instruction we felt confident enough to lower ourselves down into a dark watery pit using only a rope. Of course I had to be the first in line to try it out. Mel went incredibly slowly simply because she didn't weigh enough to go any faster!
Once at the bottom and with a normal heartrate we got our innertubes and rode down into the deep dark caves. We floated and walked for a good few hours, many times completely in the dark and not knowing what we would bounce into next. The ceiling was completely coated in glowworms! It was a mesmorizing experience... the night sky had invaded these caves and it seemed as if the stars always shined brightly. Everyone has to experience this!
Upon our return to the open pit it was night out and had been raining. So the only reasonable thing to do was climb up the steep muddy slope over pointy rocks. Finally undressing from the stench encrusted wetsuits and hitched a ride back for dinner to our hostel with our new american friends, who were living in their van... and as such didn't really care which parking lot they ended up in.
In good Booth style I ended up talking to them late into the night and got very little sleep.