Being Sunday morning the drive to Waitomo was fairly straight forward. Not a lot of traffic on the roads. Having left around 9:30am we made it to Otorohanga by midday. We took a look at a local campsite but thought little of it. We briefly ate in town before heading towards the Waitomo Caves area to see the camp sites there. After stopping and checking out one we finally settled on the Top 10 Holiday Park. We signed up as members to get future discounts and booked a plot for three nights.
Next came the challenge of putting up our new tent. It helped a little that the couple on the next site had exactly the same tent. We put it up (the easy bit) without too much fuss, installed our airbed, opened our chairs and looked upon our new temporary home. The boys very quickly put up our trusty 2 man micro tent which would fit our ‘vestibule’ area.
Once this was all sorted we set off for a hike along the Waitomo Walkway which took us eventually to a natural tunnel through which the local river flowed. To get there the path squeezed through a couple of natural side tunnels and in a couple of places we had viewpoints into the underground river.
Back at the campsite, after 3 hours of walking, the boys and I took a dunk in the outdoor pool and hot tub before showering as did Helen. After dinner we had a couple of beers in the local bar and a game of doubles at pool (Helen and I won).
Now we’re settling down for the night. Sam is playing his guitar outside, Ben and Helen are reading as will I quite shortly.
Tomorrow we’re off black water rafting which means riding rubber tubes through an underground stream. We should see the legendary glow worms this area is famous for. There should also be some abseiling. It all sounds good fun.
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