Waitomo Caves

Said our goodbyes to Chick (a lovely man) and Rachel.Roaming again!Heading north in a westerly direction ( the navigator may have said that) skirting around Taupo and across country towards Hamilton. For quite some distance we follow the great Waikato River and it's fabulous views--when you can gat close enough to see it. We stopped at one point to climb a very high viewing platform, Lots of steep steps, a long way up, only to find when we reached the top the trees needed trimming and we couldn't see anything! Huh! A sign at the bottom said no cycling. Is it us? Thro gorges and along mountain passes until we reached the relatively flat ground at Te Kuiti, just a bit of supermarket shopping for tea. We were lucky enough to find a shop which sold steak and also green lipped mussels (1 pound 30p per kilo!) even better than Mull mussels.They keep their mussels in a large rectangular glass case with a constant steam of water passing over them, you just scoop what you want into a plastic bag ,pay for them, take them home and boil them up! Fantastic. They are so big that 6 each was enough.
Next day, couldn't leave Waitomo without doing a tour underground it had to be done. We opted for a tour of the glow worm caves, quite expensive but well worth it.We have visited quite a few holes in the ground on our travels but this is the best so far. No photography was allowed. Our guide was a Maori and was very good at explaining the Maori legends that go with the caves. The acoustics were very good in the caves, and Jane wondered if Cantamus could get a gig here! Well if it's god enough for Dame Kiri, Rod Stuart,Lionel Richie and the luton Girls choir!!!!!!! towards the end of the tour we are down about 40 m, in the pitch black we have to climb into a boat. Ther is no light but millions of glow worms on the roof of the cave it's like looking at the Milky Way but 100 times over. Eventually we float out into the open halfway down the mountain and on the other side of the road to where we started. We decided not todo the trip which involved abseiling and floating down rivers on a rubber ring. Navigator said she had left har best crampons at home so she wouldn't do it!
We then head off to Raglan, across country to the west coast thro some fairly ordinary countryside by N Z standards . Raglan twinned with Chepstow, even has it's own estuary! Seems a nice place.