{"id":594,"date":"2010-03-16T13:34:48","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T21:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heynadine.com\/?p=594"},"modified":"2010-03-16T13:34:48","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T21:34:48","slug":"waitomo-caves-maori-cultural-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/waitomo-caves-maori-cultural-stay\/","title":{"rendered":"Waitomo Caves + Maori Cultural Stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a day I have been looking forward to since this trip had began!<\/p>\n

I love climbing and rappelling or abseiling as they call it down here. And caves have always fascinated me, but I’ve never done any actual caving even thought I’ve been in a cave before.<\/p>\n

Today was our Waitomo Caves<\/strong><\/a> Adventure, <\/a><\/strong>rated one of the top things you should do when you are in New Zealand, and I definitely agree.<\/p>\n

So in the caves we had the options of a few different adventures. Most of our group went onto either the TumuTumu ToObing<\/strong><\/a> adventure, which was a black-water rafting trip through the caves on tire tubes. Or the Haggas Honking Holes<\/strong><\/a>, which was an abseiling through waterfall action adventure! And that’s the one I went on .<\/p>\n

\"Waitomo<\/a><\/p>\n

This is what abseiling\u00a0 down a waterfall\u00a0 looks like.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Caving<\/a><\/p>\n

Our Haggas Honking Holes Group <3<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let me tell you, this was incredible! It was several abseils, which for those whom don’t know, abseiling is going down a rock face via a rope holding you at the top.<\/p>\n

The largest abseil we did was 20m, but the most intense one was down a waterfall with the water pouring down onto your head until you crashed down into this dark pool of water, crawled through a half submerged tunnel into a tiny water-slide like passage way down onto another waterfall and end finally dropping down a pitch black hole of water and crawling through a 10m tunnel with only a small gap above your head.<\/p>\n

PRETTY FREAKING INTENSE!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then just some more of that before we rock climb back up in gum boots.<\/p>\n

After the caving adventure we drove to Maketu<\/strong>, where we stayed at Uncle Boy’s place and had a Maori cultural experience, complete with a hangi<\/em> meal and a performance which we got to take part in.<\/p>\n

\"Cultural<\/a><\/p>\n

Our group photo with the performers!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We learned two songs and us ladies learned how to use a Poi<\/em>, which was basically a stuffed ball on a string that you swing. Where as the guys learned the Haka, <\/em>which was a Maori war dance.<\/p>\n

\"Leaders\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was brave enough to volunteer myself as a leader along with my Holland friend Tammy, and therefore we got to wear these awesome costumes!<\/p>\n

\"Maketu<\/a><\/p>\n

To finished off the evening we had the chance of watching this AMAZING sunset, simply one of the best I’ve ever seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abseiling in Waitomo Caves, New Zealand <\/b><\/i>. Plus I learn a traditional Maori dance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[133,174,810,943,1269,1275,1691,1779,1970,2161,2915,3075],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-activities","tag-amazing-sunsets","tag-travel","tag-entertainment","tag-haggas-honking-holes","tag-haka","tag-liveshows","tag-maori-cultural-experience","tag-new-zealand","tag-poi","tag-tumatuma-toobing","tag-waitomo-caves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heynadine.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}