Hippies, glowworms and ceremonies

So much happened in the last few days, so many different places and people, yet everything's blurring together.

After Paihia we spent St. Patrick's Day in Auckland, then cruised down to Raglan and spent two nights there. After that we visited the Waitomo Caves, did an incredible tour to see the glowworms, then traveled south-east to sleep in a Marae (the community houses of the Maori) and learned more about their traditional ways.

But one after the other.

Raglan - Raglan is a cute little surfer town with an amazing bay. Incredibly wide waves. The lodge we stayed in was a wilderness lodge 8 km further into the jungle. Completely secluded. Still, we had glowworms lining the pathways and a deck overlooking the bay.

While the others went surfing, we explored the Bridal Veil Falls, hiked up and down the waterfall, and cooked dinner with some other bus companions back at the lodge.

The next day we booked a different 'hostel': Solscape is an amazing plateau overlooking the ocean and beaches. We slept in a tent with one of the aforementioned companions we met on the Stray bus and met some chill hippies that supplied us with blankets (and life advice: "Raglan's got everything you neeeed, man.")

Our stay in Raglan was rounded up nicely with watching the sun dip into the ocean, while Red Bull helicopters filmed the surfers for one of their ads.

Waitomo - The Waitomo Cave tours were expensive, but worth every penny. A tour guide helped ten other people and us into a little van and drove us far out into the country side, where we walked past some sheep into the cave entrance. 

Every person was given one of those constructor helmets with headlights. It was pitchblack in the cave, but then the guide asked us to turn off our lights and hundreds of glowing dots appeared along the walls. He took us down to a little boat, urged us in, then we slid smoothly along the black water as a Milky Way of glowworms illuminated the cave. Their bluish glow reflected off the water, while the only sound to be heard was the distant rushing of a waterfall.

The second cave we went to held amazing rock formations, stalagmites, stalagtites, flowstones, animal skeletons, and and and.

Like I said, worth every penny!

Mourea - That evening we had a cultural experience night booked with Stray, where we got to meet some very cool Maori that took us into their family. Their values are very simple, they want to make you as homey and comfortable and physically full as they can. That last part was realized at their evening feast (the first homecooked meal in aaages). Roasted chicken, fried veggies, gravy, peas, chocolate-fruit salad, the list goes on...

Afterwards we took part in their evening ceremony and learned to laugh and sing with them. They even performed their traditional intimidation dance for us.

They are so wonderfully proud of their culture, and so happy to show it to visitors.