The Waitomo Glowworm Caves plus liquor laws.

So today, after waking up at seven, we took a two-hour drive to the waitomo caves. The scenery around the caves was amazing, and our two tour guides had a lot to say about the small town of waitomo. Our small van wound through a gravel path going right alongside these ravines and as we passed a dilapidated house one of the guides goes ‘See there mate, that house has been lived in by a family for four generations, they have no electricity or running water, but it is a well known fact that if you’re looking for any weed in waitomo, this is where you look. Anything that gets lost in waitomo will find its way to that house three days later.”

We saw the glowworms, tubed down the underground river, squeezed through tight crevices and avoided the eels, (we still aren’t sure whether or not there are eels in the waitomo caves, that’s the thing about New Zealanders, you can never tell when they are serious, and they like to make fun of each other/trick each other about everything).

After caving, we took the two-hour ride back to rotorua. As soon as we got back we had dinner and just hung out. A bunch of people wanted to go out to the Lava bar, but it was apparently uncool to go at eight thirty. Max, Alyssa and I decided to get some liquor downtown and bring it back to the hostel. We were totally lost in Rotorua and had no idea where the liquor store was, so I decided we should stop at the police station, to ask.

The cop we talked to was really nice, and suggested the pak-n-save just down the road, we also asked about open container laws, because we were told there were none, and apparently there are, so I guess it was a really smart decision to stop at police station. She realized that we were ‘not from around here’, I feel like everyone automatically knows, like a freshmen walking around his first day of school. She was encouraging and kept using “sweet as” which was really funny, because its probably the equivalent of a cop in the U.S. saying ‘cool’. “Sweet as” is used by most New Zealanders, and its funny because they never actually say what is so sweet.

EX: “Oh brah I took a nap the other day, it was sweet as”, “You want to get the next shout(round of beers)? Sweet as”

So we wound our way around Rotorua, going in circles, and finally got back to the hostel. We ran into Joe, who goes to the university of Auckland, and he pointed out the only difference between the southern hemisphere and northern hemisphere’s stars, The Southern Cross. Pretty cool.

Later we went to the Lava Bar, this was interesting to say the least. It seems that New Zealanders are very open minded and super liberal, until it comes to dancing. I felt like I was at a middle school dance, everyone was a few feet apart from each other, except for the australearn kids. It was funny how nervous kiwis looked when they saw us dancing.

Anyways, tomorrow is all about culture, doing a traditional maori hukka, and then off to a maori village for a traditional meal. Ohh and I went lugeing!