Waitomo Caves, more glow worms, an eel, a pig and a carcass?

The area around Waitomo Town is famous for its caves. Some are on public land and some are on private land where you need a guide to go in. We scheduled a tour for a “raft” trip inside one of the private caves for 2 days later.

We started our first morning driving out to a hike I found on my hiking app. As it turned out, there was a waterfall, Marokopa Falls, just a few miles beyond where my hike was so Terri decided we should go there first. We at first had dismissed this hike thinking the distance on the curvy roads was not worth it, we were wrong.

We had seen a sign showing Piripiri Caves and decided to explore.

Safely out of the caves, we headed to my original hike. Odd, but there were hundreds of shoes hanging on the fence and sign for our turnoff to the hike.

The road ended up being gravel, very narrow and with the recent rains there were large muddy puddles of indeterminate depth. A little risky in low-slung Britzy. The hike I originally planned was too far in so I chose a different one – mistake.

Once back in civilization, we were advised to visit the public Waitomo Caves: they were awesome! But, since we had not gotten in our hiking mileage for the day, I parked a couple of miles from the caves parking lot and we walked a trail. All was great when we started, sunshine puffy clouds, so, no rain poncho needed -mistake. By our return, we and especially me, we’re soaked from the rain and walking through tall wet grass while being snickered at by the cows.

Having dried out mostly, we walked to a local restaurant that was recommended to us, Tomo Restaurant. It did not disappoint.

At one point I had ventured to the bar and upon my return I find a guy chatting-up Terri, (she adds good-looking too). Great! Then I find out that it was Terri who started chatting him up! He was nice guy, one of the rally racers in town. Then the bartender joined us for awhile and bought us a round of drinks. It was a great evening with good food and new friends.

The next morning was our guided cave tour, part of which was to be in a raft, but first we had to get around this gal.

The private cave tour was a lot of fun.