Coromandal - Raglan - Waitomo with the girls

Meeting Courtney, Bex & Rachel was cool as I jumped in their car as we drove to Hamilton. We didn't like the look of town too much, so continued on to a lovely surfer town called Raglan on the West coast. I ate the biggest mussells I have ever seen for tea in Raglan, mmm! The next day Bex went surfing while the rest of us sat lazily on the beach. The water is far too cold in NZ to go surfing! That night we stayed in a really cool backpackers - set on a hilltop with stunning views, the dorms were former railway carriages which had been converted.

We set out for Waitomo the following day, an there we did a great caving tour - this included abseiling down into the cave, floating in the darkness over rapids (I was the only one to fall out, again), looking at millions of gloworms in the caves, wading through the river and climbing through holes and back out of the cave. We had to wear wellies which was a bit stupid as they kept filling up to the top with water and wouldn't drain out. We also discovered a novel use for a wetsuit - fill it up with hot water and you get your own personal spa, brilliant! Probably the best thing about the caving trip was that the guide was the absolute spitting image of Tom Cruise, which was nice.

I decided to stay in Waitomo and left the girls to go on to Rotorua, they were rushing around trying to see everything in a week whereas I have more time. It turned out to be a good decision as I met a farmer in Waitomo who needed someone to ride his horses, so I got to ride lovely horses in beautiful countryside in return for free accomodation.

The 2 other girls riding the horses with me invited me to a barbeque at someone's house in Waitomo. It was a proper Young Farmer's party, set on a farm in the middle of nowhere with stunning views. The whole area reminded me of home a lot and the parties I used to go to with YFC. Walking back from the party, rather drunk, we stumbled across a load of glowworms at the side of the road, a pretty spectacular sight at 3am!