June 12, 2011
We woke up in our beautiful accommodation in Raglan. The hostel was so fun--such a surfing-like paradise! It was set up on a beautiful hill with native bush all around and just a peek view of the Tasman Sea. Last night we sat around eating fish and chips and playing spoons. We finished the evening watching a movie. Such fun!
After departing Raglan we headed straight for the Waitomo Caves. Here we had the chance to abseil and climb through caves. I just signed up without thinking about it much. We abseiled right away down a very long drop. We did three abseils. The crew taking us through gave me a job. I had to wait at the bottom of a waterfall abseil and tell people to crawl through a cave that looked like it didn’t exist. People had just flown down a waterfall cliff into a small pool cave, and they had almost drowned in a waterfall! Then I had to show them a spot that didn’t look like anything and tell them to crawl through it on their hands and feet face first! It was crazy! People looked at me like I was nuts. I was the last to go through.
I loved abseiling and climbing through the waterfalls and streams. We got so muddy and there were some tight spots. I only struggled near the end when my boots were full of water and I had to climb up rock faces and out of the caves. All in all we were in there for about three hours or so.
Afterwards we cleaned up and headed for our Maori exprience. When we arrived we got a good explanationg and talking to about what was going to happen from Uncle Boy who runs the place. We had a quick dinner and then enjoyed a Maori Haka performance. It’s hard to go into all the details and explain exactly what we did, but it was special and the people were so sweet. There were a couple of young boys who were really good too!
Then the boys in our group went and learned the Haka and us girls learned a special dance. We performed for each other, took pictures, and then we were done. Tonight we are sleeping in a marae, a Maori meeting house.
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