Q_Q: 17 Aug 2014

Checked out hotel at Hamilton and walked to Hamilton bus transport centre. Waited for Naked bus to Waitomo. Heard lots of bad comment regarding Naked bus as compared to Intercity. This trip, we travelled a lot with Naked bus and it was actually comparable to Intercity and was cheaper. The bus was equally comfortable, some with built in toilet though we never used as there were toilet stop. Booked one of the 4 hrs trip saying that there were no stops but the driver would actually stop for toilet break, so no worries at all. Trip to Paihia, the driver actually offer to send us to our backpackers as we reached around 9-10pm. How nice!

Or we were just lucky that we never encounter any bad experience?

↓ Our backpacker, Kiwi Paka

Initially, we thought of deposit our bag at I site. I think need some cash for the deposit. We then asked how far was our backpacker from I site and the person told us it was 100m just beside I site. We then decided to deposit our bag with our backpacker instead.

From Kiwi Paka to Waitomo Glowworm Caves, it was a 500m walk

We had purchase ticket via web before visiting Waitomo caves. I would suggest not to make purchase if the price was fix and no discount whether to buy online or over counter. In case that in any event, we were not able to make it for the tour, at least we would not waste our money.

We bought the Waitomo glowworm caves triple caves combo. 3 caves visiting, Waitomo Glowworm Caves, Aranui Cave and Ruakuri Cave. We had to exchange our printout from the web for tickets to these caves. Since we were not driving, we checked with counter the distance to these caves and whether transport could be arranged. The sales person told us that it was 3km from Waitomo Glowworm Caves to Aranui Cave and it would be rushed for us. They were nice to arrange transport to the Aranui and Ruakuri Cave.

1st stop was Glowworm Caves. Photos not allowed. Nothing much except Glowworm. We would see many glowworm in the dark during the boat ride. That's the main highlight.

Ending of boat ride, permission for photo taking. I then took a shot of the darkness, photo above, of the glowworm.

Waiting area for the transport to other caves. We would be called upon when the transport arrived.

Aranui Caves. Guide would brief us on the caves formation.

Ruakuri Cave. This caves, we have to walk round and round to the bottom....

I like this caves, same briefing of caves formation, able to see glowworm, photos allowed, combination of Aranui and Glowworm? Actually, I would still visit the 3 caves instead of one as they were different.

The guide showed us this interesting thing, Saliva of glowworm! He shined his torchlight to these yucky saliva of glowworm! After this, I dare not go near the stone or try to touch them.

We ate our lunch cum dinner at Huhu restaurant. This restaurant, we saw the Taiwan variety show, 时尚玩家 introduced it. They actually tried their dessert but we tried their main course.