Waitomo - The land of Caving

Well, I'm in Waitomo right now, however, the caving experience is for tommorrow. Now, I have bad news. I've been REALLY excited to put up this post, so I waited until I had a computer that I could put my pictures up on, however when I used the card reader on this computer, it wanted to format my card. . .NO! Not going to fall for that one! So, unfortunately, there will be no pics on this blog, and I'm so sad, because of all I've done in the last few days. But have no fear, I will post pictures eventually on those days. (And this is a prepay internet console, so I have nothing to do for the next 30 minutes but post SOMETHING, so here you are!)

Firstly, from the Coromandal region, I hitched my way down to a little no name town called Matamata. No name that's worth remembering, unless you go by it's more fictional name. (Are you ready Matt?) Yep, I went to Hobbiton! It was AWESOME. For those of you that don't know what Hobbiton is, it is one of the most important locations in LOTR. And for those that don't know what LOTR is, it stands for Lord Of The Rings. :) So, Hobbiton was phenomenol! I remembered a lot, and I think I may have been one of the only more die hard fans on the tour. There were 9 of us, and only me and one other person had read the books! What a shame! But, yeah, I got a picture of me under the party tree, infront of the lake that the dragon flies over, inside Bag End, and a picture of #3 bagshot road. (Samwise gamgee's place, which only his garden exists now. . .And I THINK it's bagshot road, but I may be mistaken on that.) The whole town of Matamata is LOTR based too. Posters of Legolas everywhere, and the backpacker I stayed at, which I don't wish upon anybody to stay there, was called hobbiton backpackers.

After that, I spent a day in Hamilton and I met up with an old friend from Bozeman. Alli Rodrique is here and we met up to travel together for the next week or two. She'll be travelling way up north to go teach after that week is up. So I really look forward to hanging out with her for a little bit! So, Alli and I went to the gardens in Hamilton, and they just make me want to post pictures so badly! They were gorgeous! They had six different gardens, each with a unique theme. Japanese, Chinese, English, Modern American, Indian, and Italian. It was like visititing six different countries in half an hour. Then they also had a huge rose garden as well. Roses of every variety that you could think of. Deep purples, Lush Reds, and the whitest whites you've seen. And yes, we stopped to smell them! :)

Then, the next day (today) came around. Alli and I got a super early start and drove to Raglan. One of the rides I hitched from told me that Raglan was a phenomenol surf spot, so I took his word for it and checked it out. He was not lying. So, I finally, after 23 and some odd years, got to go surfing. And for all of you that didn't have faith that I could get up on my feet my first day, I'm sticking it to ya! I stood succesfully on the board on the 3rd wave I caught! Given, I was on a nine foot soft board, but yeah, it wasn't hard at all. I compared it to wake boarding when the boat is going slow, so that the board is a little wobbly. However, I did try larger waves and I couldn't really catch them, or they'd tumble me. But I definately see how this could be a very addicting sport! I'm excited to try again, maybe even with a shorter board! I don't know if I'm ready for that yet though.

Then finally, Alli and I drove to Waitomo. But on the way we stopped at the most beautiful Bridal Veil Falls. The largest falls I've seen to date. 55 meters, and very pretty. Once again, I wish I could get the picture thing to work! What was interesting about this cliff that the falls were going over is they had "professional" abseiling (rappeling) chains with signs all over them saying that only qualified professionals were allowed to use them. Mainly for tours and what not. People making money on others doing something so simple as rappelling. Oh, how I wish I had my rope so that we could've just gone for it. Well, looks like I have a reason to come back with all my climbing gear now!

So yeah, I'm having a great time still. Tomorrow we go caving which in theory includes abseiling into a cave with glow worms, black water rafting, (black water rafting is floating down an underground river through the cave) and maybe even a little climbing inside the cave! I'm really excited! Looking forward to telling you all about it in more detail!

Till next time!