The eels would have been no match for "Piggy" the supertorch (posting from the road)

I am writing to you again from the back of the Camry; she is holding together quite nicely after suffering that initial blow on day 1. We are enroute from Waitomo to the Bay of Islands, after an exciting few days of adventure. On our drive yesterday we stopped to see the most fantastic bird of all times. Her name is Atu and she is a Great Spotted Kiwi. Atu stands about knee height and behaves like an excited puppy. When her keeper entered the cage, Atu would run in between her legs and jump up and down. She was so excited she would run in circles until her little legs came out from under her and she tipped over. If this doesn't seem humerous to you, close your eyes - try and picture a large flightless bird with no wings, just long legs and a long beak behaving like a golden retriever. Trust me - hilarious. (photos were not allowed, so i only had the chance to sneak one).

We arrived in the Waitomo area yesterday in time to explore the Aranui caves - full of huge stalegtites and cave wetas (large insects) before nightfall. After nightfall - someone came up with the brilliant idea to hike into the woods and find the entrance to some other caves. All the guidebooks recommended doing this hike with powerful torches (flashlights). We did not have any torches. We had a little piggy shaped penlight that I recieved at Christmas as a stocking stuffer. It's important to have faith. That is what I had in Piggy - poor thing only has a little LCD light; she works well to find a washroom in the dark or check someone's pupillary response. Piggy is not designed for torch replacment endevours, but Piggy came through, effectivly leading us as we tramped our way through the wilderness to see another one of NZ's unique natural wonders...glowworms.

Glowworms are actually maggots (but worm sounds better) I won't go into the gory details of what makes them glow but itis an awesome sight - nature's rave if you will. There are millions of irridescent green lights all around you - it's absurdly cool.

We spent last night in this 100 year old historic old hotel (read: abandoned and creepy). It appears as though 1945 came for a night and just never checked out. Old chandeliers, entire wings sectioned off and a spooky goth dressed receptionist completed the look. I swear - I am not making this up - when you peered into the office behind the desk there was a shoppinglist and under the "to buy" section - ghostbuster. I barley slept all night.

Today was an awesome adrenaline filled morning of Black Water Rafting through the Ruakuri cave. Freezing cold but awesome.We started with the humiliating donning of wetsuits. My pants were a little baggy (well as baggy an neoprene can get) but my wetsuit jacket was so snug that I was unable to take a deep breath or maneouver my arms. I walked like a little kid in a snow suit. As we started to descend into the cave one of the guides noticed that my headlamp was not working, loose wire (where was Piggy whenI needed her???). He then McGuyver'd the connection into functioning with mud. So here I am descending into a watery cave with a flickering headlight in an ill fitted wet suit carrying a small inner tube as my life preserver.

The first part of the adventure involes walking/crawling our way through a serious of underground tunnels with giant stalagtites protruding all around. The limestone floor of the cave is slippery and loose. Eventually we reach the first of our waterfall jumps. The guide turns to me for some last minute instructions. Now I have a sense of adventure but I also have some serious control issues - I like to know what is involved with all of these fun little escapades. Shannon, the guide is rambling off the instructions faster then I can keep up in her kiwi english while rushing water is roaring around us. I distinctly remember turning and telling her that I couldn't hear any of what she just said. Shannon looks at me, repositions my inner tube and then replies, "you'll figure it out" and pushes me backwards off the waterfall. I am now falling ass first into a black abyss of water with my headlamp flickering and my ridicuously small inner tube as my only barrier to death. Did I mention the water is full of eels?

Despite the brush with death, it was an unbelievable site. We floated through cave tunnels, headlamps off, lit only by glowworms. There is no way my flair for words could ever do it justice. We celebrated our survival with the rest of our team; 4 Australians, the three of us, all Canadian and Matt an American currently stationed in Afganistan. (that should be an indicator as to the danger level of this excursion - a man left war for this amount of adventure!) **pictures later - I need to photoshop some of those wetsuit shots before anyone sees those**

Anyway...I must go as we are nearing a McDonalds and we must stop so I can suss out their menu for differences...another travel habit of mine (remember the McArab???) TTFN