Day 28 - Waitomo caves and Mourea cultural stay

Today I left Raglan nice and early. Another sleepless night with midgeys as my best friend. First stop was the waitomo caves, this is the main thing I have been wanting to do even before I came to New Zealand so I was so excited! They were so amazing! I did the spellbound tour so I walked around the caves and looked at the ancient limestone and cave tunnels. Then we had hot chocolate then got on a rubber boat in one of the tunnels and headed down through the glow worms. It looked like thousands of stars was so cool! Was smiling all the way around it was amazing. After the spellbound    we stopped off at a bridge dam and walked onto it, it was really wobbly! Good view though. We had a stop at manawaku for lunch where I bought bread and crisps to make a crisp butty! Then we arrived at mourea to stay with the tribe. We were greeted by T, who is a daughter of a tribe leader. It was strange seeing them in normal clothes! Straight away they cooked for us as me being the only vegetarian they made me some special falafel which was well good! For dessert we had fresh fruit!!!!! Custard and chocolate!! Yum. After dinner we all cleaned up in the kitchen which was a nice family feel. Then it was show time! The mourea tribe put on a show explaining there culture and stick the tongues out like they would to scare there enemies it was pretty scary. Then the boys and girls got split into teams the boys but on a war routine and the girls did a.dance with a puka which looked easy cause its just a bag and sponge but it was really hard!!!! After that we asked T 1000 questions about the tribe and then we all settled in the main hall (where we had to take our shoes off everytime we went in as it was a battle ground they believe wearing your shoes is bringing the blood of the dead inside.) T told us some war stories that they use to call the young with centuries ago which were Interesting and then we went to sleep, 30 of us in a sponge mattress in a sleeping bag on the floor in a ancient tribal meeting hall - the best sleep I have ever had!!!
Really eye opening,peaceful day