34 | Auckland & Waitomo

Feeling slightly nervous I stepped onto the Air China flight realizing that this would be the first time I would be completely alone on my voyage. Smiling to the airhostess as she gestured me to my seat, I thought I am as far away from home as possible and this is the first time I decide to do this. What the hell am I doing?

With accommodation pre-booked, I headed onto Auckland on the shuttle bus and checked into Base. I entered the room and saw a sea of clothes all over the floor and a damp smell attacked my defenseless nostrils. It’s only 3 nights I kept telling myself.

I woke early to catch the Intercity bus to the Waitomo Caves where the blue tinged glow worms famously live. After a 3-hour bus ride I arrived outside a glass fronted building tucked into the side of the rocks. I was told that I had 1 hour to do the tour before turning back around. $105 for 1 hour at the venue, hmm a little bit rushed I thought.

We were greeted by our guide who was from a local Mauri tribe who told us about the surrounding area and the tour we would be going on. “No photos are allowed in the cave” he called out as I was finishing attaching my action camera to my mount. Oh great! Well lets see how I can get around this I thought. We started walking slowly amongst the stalactites and were told they grew at 1mm per year as the moisture works its way through the water table and down into the cavern. The original explorer was a British guy who met with a local Mauri chief and went on a walk across their land and stumbled across the entering. They mapped out the network of caves over a number of years using only candlelight as their guide into the darkness.

The guide asked where I was from and I put on my best Yorkshire accent as I said Sheffield or should I say ‘near Manchester’ to every other person who did not know the UK so well (including people from England who did not know anywhere further north than Watford) A voice echoed behind me in the cave ‘oh we are from Rotherham’ fantastic; the other side of the World and there is an elderly Indian couple who live 20 minutes from my house. The World is incredibly small!

30 minutes into the tour and we stopped at the entrance way finally to the glowworms. In complete silence or muttered whispers for those who couldn’t help themselves we proceeded down the steps to a small steel boat which the guide would navigate us on across the waterway amongst this natural spectacle.

The worms were incredible to look at, similar to fire flies if you have seen one but they shone an electric blue. It was like star gazing up at the ceiling with the colours spanning across the water in all directions to the backing track of ‘oohhs’ and ‘ahhhsss’. You could see the saliva strings which the worms use to catch their prey hanging down hungrily into the distance as the boat turned the corner into the mouth of the cave and the 3 minute experience suddenly came to an end. 40 minutes of exploring and 7 hours of bus travel back to Auckland. Not completely sure it was value for money but it was an experience nevertheless.

I arrived back into my room to see a mountain of a man blocking the direction to my top bunk. He appeared friendly enough as he chatted to a new girl which had moved into the humble surroundings. I came back from the shower to hear the line ‘so are we in the friend zone?’ followed by ‘Yeah, do you wanna grab a bite to eat and do stuff’. Well this was slightly weird I thought as I wiped the water out of my hair. At this point the German girl started to get a little awkward and glanced over for what I read was help. In the moments of silence he glanced over to me and said ‘you are not going to hurt me are you man’ the prospect sounded ridiculous as he was 6’6ft and must have weighed 150kg minimum. Not even my middleweight class would put a bruise into that frame. I smiled and politely responded with ‘no you are fine my friend’ before he mumbled to himself as if lost then left the room. Well that was weird I thought as I began to talk to my new traumatized roommate. We found out the next day that he had been taking Meth and also dealing drugs. The police had come to remove him and the hostel kicked him out. Well that was certainly a first and unique experience I thought whilst laughing to myself of the fact that the bloke was potentially scared of me.

The next day I had a little time to check out the city. The CBD is pretty small and a lot of the buildings are grey in appearance. After a short harbor walk and a view from the park over the city skyline I concluded that I was glad to only spend a day or two in the city. It was time to see the real New Zealand I had waited for.

#Accommodation #Nature #City #Tour #Wildlife #Advice