To the north!: glowworm caves and sleeping in the car

I went on a trip to the Northland a few days ago. It. Was. Amazing.

safety first!

We left on Sunday afternoon in our white soccer mom minivan, seven girls tucked in a cozy seven-person van. Our first impromptu stop was Ureki beach (or something like that), where we played in the waves that are stronger than you think and were vaguely reminded of the beach we went to over orientation. After this brief stop we continued onto to Pak N Save (grocery store) and then to Abbey Caves, a glowworn cave outside Whangarei.




Now, Abbey Caves were awesome. However, it was an extremely muddy walk to get to the caves and after Caitlyn epically wiped out in the mud we were very cautious to continue. I was the only one who brought my camera so fortunately I have oodles of pictures. Going in the cave was awesome. We used the torch settings from our cell phones and mini flashlights to navigate through the tall caves and attempt not to soak our shoes in the streams at the bottom of the caves. The glowworms were awesome. They look like little stars in the sky. I don't remember exactly what makes them glow - and I don't think think they're actually worms - but I was the only person who hadn't seen glowworms before and thought they were very cool. (Everyone else had done Waitomo which have some pretty epic caves and include abseiling into the cave and blackwater rafting. If I have enough money I might do it.) We turned around once we remembered that sun sets around 5:30pm and it was getting close to then and we realized that we might have to swim in the water if we went any further. Unfortunately, the cave ate Njeri and Sarah's phones so that was a delay in climbing out of the cave while trying to find them but eventually we were on our way to find some dinner.

Caitlyn was muddy. We learned to be more careful.

sun starting to set pre-caves

CAVES ARE SO COOL

We decided to stop in Kerikeri for dinner. We'd bought some material for sandwiches at Pak N Save earlier so Njeri, being the trooper that she is, made fourteen chicken/avocado/brie sandwiches while hunched over a bench on the wharf in Kerikeri. The sandwiches were delicious though and I can now say that I ate a massive sandwich awkwardly on my hands while sitting on a tarp by the water, being eaten up by sandflies and covered in mud.




After dinner we drove to find a waterfall that is lit up at night and then finally found a place to sleep. It was rather cozy, sleeping in the car, all seven of us. I got the back seat, which meant I was laying down but couldn't stretch out my legs without kicking the people in front of me or Emily who was on the floor at my feet. We slept in a parking lot in a medical center and were woken up several times by cars driving by. The most, um, exciting, one was at 6am when a garbage truck was about ten feet away from the car. Woo. However sleeping in cars is worth it because you save money on hostels. Hostels are expensive! Okay. Day one complete.