Day 3 New Zealand

Today we woke up bright and early to go caving. We got dressed and left our favorite hostel so far on the trip. We met up with the tour guide took care of paperwork and then we had to get dressed. Apparently it is freezing cold in the caves so we got wet suits, wet suit jackets, socks, rubber sock things, another pair of socks to go over those, and gum boots. Gum boots are these little rubbery boots you wear, I guess you can think of them as fishing boots. We also had a helmet with a light on the top of it so we could see in the cave. As you can imagine we were looking pretty hot!
The cave was about a 10 minute drive out of town and a 30-40 minute hike through the bush. We loaded into a mini bus and headed out. There were 4 Australian people who were coupled up and an asian couple. Then there was the two of us. It was Valentines day and I don't think that they celebrate it here but everybody was coupled up so it made Meribeth and me think of it even more.
We walked through the bush, over some bridges, through the mud, and down to the cave. We turned on our lights and headed in. It was pretty cool. We just walked straight through the water. You couldn't really see where you were stepping so you had to trust you weren't going to fall down a big hole.
Now before we did this a girl from home had told us that a flood came into the cave and all the people drowned. So that was intersting to know that as we were walking through this cave. haha.
So we had to make our way through the cave up and over rocks. It was quite a good hike. There was a small waterfall that went straight down into a small hole formed by the rocks. The water was quite deep at this section so we had to tuck ourselves into a ball and basically fall straight down the waterfall. don't let me fool you the waterfall was about 4 feet high but the water was really deep underneath and that was completely unexpected since the rest of teh cave is only about ankle to thigh deep. So I was shocked when I fell down the waterfall and got completely dunked underwater. The water was ice cold as well. It is after all water that is underground. It was shocking when the water came over my face. It was so much fun though!
After that we grabbed some inner tubes and floated down a very narrow river path through the pitch black cave with our lights off. It was an amzing experience. Tehre were small glow worms and the top of the cave that gave off the only light in the whole place.
The glow worms live there and they turn their light on when they're hungary so insects are attracted to them. They release a small fishing wire type substance that the insects get stuck to, and that's how they survive. They're very tiny and they look like a children's lite bright.
We got off the tubes and headed down as far as we could go before the cave was completely filled up with water. Then we sat and had al ittle break with a candy bar and some hot chocolate.
We headed back and repeated the process until we got about 3/4 of the way out of the cave. We then went through a place that was called the "love tunnel." The love tunnel was a different way through the cave that was very tight. We had to crawl through on our hands and knees pretty much the whole way and wiggle our way through a small hole on the other side. I couldn't imagine anyone too big trying to fit through this cave.
We made our way back out of the cave and up to what they called their natural hydroslide. Which is basically a natural waterslide. It was a long smooth (ish) rock that had water runnign down it. Meribeth went first and had a pretty decent ride. You have to do everything exactly right or you could really hurt yourself.
The next person went down and she turned sideways and all over the place. That kind of turned people off. The next guy went and he went completely sideways, his helmet flew off as he landed in the puddle at the bottom. Everyone went running after him! He looked like he was going to kill himself. I went running half way down the hill before I realized I really do want to try it. So it's my turn and I sit down on the mat and give myself a push. I let go of the mat and slid off of it going sideways down the hill. I'm really suprised I didn't kill myself. But it was a blast and I'm glad I went back up and did it.
We got back in this military looking truck and headed back to the office. There they gave us a glass of wine and we got to sit in the spa, while they showed us a slide show of the pictures they took. It was great fun. We then had a shower at there facilities and headed on our way to Franz Josef.
We stopped at a small town for a second and then headed off again. Well apparently, I was headed out al ittle too fast and I went around a corner and falied to stay in my lane. Word of advice, don't do it in front of police! Yep, I got pulled over and got a ticket in a different country. Not too many people can say that! The cop only gave me a ticket for failing to stay in my lane. BEcause I was only going 114 kph in a 100kph zone. That is really only like 8 miles over the speed limit if you do the math. So ya lucky me. haha. Oh well you live and learn. It's not going to spoil my trip. I know mom...I'll be more careful.
AFter that we went out to a look out space that turned out not to be a lookout point just an old harbor or something. So we headed to shanty town.
Shanty town is a little town that has been here for a long long time. They used to gold mine in Shantytown. So we got to gold mine in the little wooden, well I don't really know what to call them. We got to gold pan I should say. It was a fun little experience. We went through a little mock town of what it was like in the olden days. They had a fire house with a manual hose and a little firetruck they used back in the early 1800's. It was really cool. I have picture. I got a lot because I figured Jason would be interested.
It was a fun little experience but we had to get back on the road. So we headed to Franz Josef. Franz Josef is the glacier. We had a glacier hike scheduled for the morning. We called the hostel we were supposed to stay in because we were lost.
Well it turns out that I organized accomodation in a completely different town. I felt really awful because it was this really nice old man, and it was pretty obvious they didn't get many customers. He was probably thrilled that I called and needed two beds. So I felt really awful that we had to tell him we weren't going to make it.
The second problem was every hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, and hostel were fully booked! We looked everywhere. Finally I walked into a place and gave him the big puppy dog eyes and told him we couldn't find anywhere and I had booked in the wrong city. He called a friend from another place and they hooked us up with a double bed private room at a backpackers. Apparently they saved it as an emergency room but the girl was ready to go home and wanted to give it away before she left. So we were saved. We hung out made some dinner, watched some t.v., and went to sleep.
Tomorrow we are going on a full day glacier hike. What an amazing experience!