Day 6
Junming had to settle some things in Auckland about the house and to meet up with her nz friends whom she haven't caught up with for some time. That leaves Jr and i on our own (Jh is accompanying Jm) and we have to plan our own activities. We had planned the night before to rent a car to drive to Waitomo Caves where we can do our Black Water Rafting.
We had our breakfast at Strawberry Alarmclock before heading over to AEQ Rental Car. We chose a white Nissan Starlet and rented it for a day for $61.
Jr and i then started our road trip to Waitomo Caves. I drove, drove and drove until i was a little sick of driving. After stopping at Ngaruawahia for a toilet break at a petrol station, we exchanged posts.
Petrol Station at Ngaruawahia
We reached Otorohanga after around 2 hours 20 minutes and had our lunch there.
In Otorohanga heading towards Waitomo Caves
Gateway to Waitomo Caves
We reached Waitomo Caves at 1.30 pm and had 1 hour to spare as the black water rafting starts at 2.30 pm. After we parked the car, i got out and noticed a scratch at the side of the car. I gestured Jr to take a closer look and we were sure that scratch was not caused by us. I noticed that Jr had opened the car boot and he left it open. I instinctively closed it as i thought he had taken his bag. Bad move.
He then exclaimed to me why did i closed the boot when he had not taken out his bag. The next sentence he said put me in a state of shock. "The car key is in the boot!"
As the vehicle is those older type cars with its boot opened by key, there is no way we can open the boot. Unfortunately, Jr had already locked the car doors before opening the boot.
My mind immediately was thrown in a mess and i was cursing at our bad luck. I did not check before slamming the boot down and Jr dumped the keys in the boot. Why would anyone put car keys into the boot right? I tried not to blame anyone then since it was both our faults.
Luckily, Jr remained calm and he contacted the rental company for help. The company then referred us to AA for help and we contacted them. They could only come at 7 pm and we were thinking if we can gets the locals to help us. The souvenir shop uncle was extremely helpful and he lent us a flat metal stick for us to try using it to open the boot lock.
The tools were useless to us as we are no burglars and did not know how to unlock the car. Some visitors tried to help but their expertise was limited as well. The souvenir shop uncle then contacted the local car locksmith and they would be coming over in half an hour.
However, the black water rafting is about to start and the uncle kindly helped to attend to the personnel when we went off for the adventure. We sat on a small bus that drove us to a container building where we changed our clothes and got into the wet suits, jackets and boots.
Preparing to go for underground water caves crawling, climbing and tubing
Walked for around 10-15 minutes along the hills before reaching the caves. We then descended through a small hole into darkness. There is a torchlight on our helmets and we were able to see our way through the abyss. The caves were initially quite wide and the tour guide brought us to some parts of the cave where we had to squeeze and force our bodies through the small openings. I bumped my helmet against the rock quite a lot of times.
Luckily, there was almost no insects in the cave other than abundant glowworms on the ceiling of the caves. We went through caverns, cracks and holes by climbing, descending, crawling and swimming. After about 1 hour, there was even a tea break and the tour guide whipped out hot lemonade and chocolate fingers. We spent some time chatting with the tour guide and finding other fun activities to do in New Zealand.
After the break, we continued the adventure and got onto the black tubes located at various parts of the caves. We paddled around the wet caves and brought the tubes back after some paddling. We were also told to jump onto the tubes by climbing onto high ground and falling backwards onto the tube.
The tour guide also tried to make it more exciting by scaring us around the corners and telling us the ancient folklore of monsters in Waitomo Caves. That didn't do much for us other than make our heartbeat skip one more beat. He also brought a digicam with underwater housing and took a number of pictures of us.
Wet and cold!
Anyway it was interesting paddling, swimming, crawling and climbing in Waitomo Caves though it wasn't as exciting as i expected. Our bare hands were numb from all the swimming and paddling as the water was freezing cold. I think the abrasions from the rocks removed most of the dead skin from my hands as well.
The tour guide recommended us to white water rafting as the river is much faster compared to the speed of water in the caves.
It was dark by the time we got out of the caves and we had spent approximately 2 hours inside. After bathing and changing out of the wet suits, we got back to the main area via bus. The car locksmith had already got the car keys out and the bill for it was NZ$100. I had already told myself to be prepared to fork out some cash for the key problem and i was just glad that the key was out without any damage to the car locks, boot or windows.
We then had dinner at the nearby restaurant before driving the 3 hour road trip back to Auckland. It was 11 pm by the time we reached Jm's house.
End of Day 6
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