Waitomo

Our bus stopped at Waitomo for one reason- the glow worm caves. This was one of the main reasons why we picked the North Island over the South as we had both wanted to do this for a while. We had a 3 hour time slot with our group where they took you into the caves and you black water rafted 65m underground. We were made to put thick wetsuits on- these were already wet from the previous group and it was the most disgusting feeling putting a cold wet, wetsuit on. But we quickly got over it as we were loaded into a mini bus and taken to a little creek. For some unknown reason- I still don't actually know why they made us do this; they made us jump backwards into the shallow, freezing cold creek and just float to the stairs. We then got back into the mini bus and drove to the caves. We had to climb through the smallest of spaces- one being so tiny we had to sit on our rings and lay all the way back and get pulled by our feet through. We floated through and had to jump off a few waterfalls... backwards into the darkness... Was actually quite scary at points seeing as I'm afraid of the dark. When we got further into the caves we all had to form a line and hold each other's feet to keep connected and turn off our headlights. Then you saw the amazing glow worms!!! There was so many of them and it was incredible to see! We got to see them for about 15 minutes just tuning in the darkness, but you could always see at least a few when exploring the caves. It got so cold in the caves and by the end we couldn't wait for a hot shower! It was an incredible experience! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures because we simply just would've lost the GoPro, you were constantly climbing or trying to float around.