Waitomo

Sunday 17th February

The next stop off was Waitomo (wai meaning water and tomo meaning cave) a sleepy village which is only visited because of its network of over 300 caves. Before reaching Waitomo we stopped off at Te Puia a thermal park. However we were not aware that it was a paid for activity or that there was nothing to do around the park as we really didn't fancy going on a tour of it. Instead we opted to walk down to the BP garage and have breakfast there.

I think we were generally all a bit grumpy today as as the day progressed we got more and more annoyed with the driver for failing to tell us what we were doing. This came to a head when we arrived at Waitomo and discovered that the dorm rooms she had promised were no longer available and we were placed in twin rooms instead. Being an odd number I ended up checking in on my own. Not really a problem but not very sociable either. Five minutes later one of the guys from the bus turned up. He looked round the room and quickly discovered it was only a twin and by the time I had come back from dinner he had dissappeared. Obviously too much for him to handle...