Day 40 - Black Water Rafting...Eventually

Chaggie had planned a busy day for today and busy is most certainly what we got! We woke at 07:00 and had breakfast with Peter this morning before leaving the house at 07:45. A lot of high expectations and excitement for our first road trip around NZ!

First on the planner was to get to Hamilton, would be an hour and 45 minute journey approximately, we'd get there all with the thanks to Staggie's Sat-nav so a stress free trip was planned. Is that what we got? Oh no...you couldn't think we'd get away with a stress free trip on our first day travelling around New Zealand now.

Chino was the chosen driver to start off with this morning. Chaggie had just got onto the highway to Hamilton, just 15 minutes from Peter and Esther's house. Chino all of a sudden found the steering wheel loose and the balance difficult to control, a loud sound then occurred followed by the car starting to shake. Yep you've got it....A punctured tyre. Staggie looked into his wind mirror and found the back wheel was shockingly flat so Chino pulled into the shoulder safely.

Well, could our trip have started any worse? Perhaps.. Not only one tyre was punctured but two. Something that just goes unheard of today. Both on the left side of the vehicle, the front tyre looked to have a small puncture but the back tyre had been torn up badly. Chaggie were very confused as we would have felt it and heard whenever it occurred but no, it slowly started until Staggie realised what the problem was. Yet they couldn't have been flat back at Peter and Esther's as we would have noticed. An enigma.

Luckily, when Graeme bought the car, he also covered it with breakdown and third party, fire and theft insurance with AA. So Staggie immediately called them and they soon sent over a tow truck. Whilst Chino got in contact with Graeme who is currently in Queenstown, Staggie rang Peter just to inform him of our situation. Without asking, he very kindly drove to us, it was safer to wait in his car rather than by our car on the shoulder. The tow truck soon arrived after about 45 minutes, we got taken to a tyre place called 'Budget Tyres'. They replaced our tyres with previously used ones, ones that were slightly more balanced in size! After seeing the state the tyres were in, they reckon they were low on air to start off with, so we had been driving on them without enough. This meant the rim cut through the rubber and tore it. We found a 3rd tyre was quite low on air also. Peter and Chaggie believe somebody must have let out some air of 3 of our tyres, leaving them low. It was 2 hours since we called the AA till Chaggie got back on the road. Chino had to call the Black Water Rafting company that he had already reserved a spot with at 12:45 to cancel.

We got to Hamilton ok, Chino drove the way. The weather on this trip was pretty good so some nice scenery was taken in. We had a look round the shops at Hamilton, finding a cheap clothes shop. We took full advantage buying Jeans and T-shirts before leaving to Waitomo where we planned to catch a later time for the Black Water Rafting. Staggie drove, getting us there for 14:00 when we had lunch in a cafe at the Black Water Rafting base. We managed to book a place for the 15:45 trip down Ruakuri Cave.

Waitomo is well known for it's 'Glow-worm Caves' and 'Black Water Rafting'. We geared up, put on a wet suit and a helmet with a torch light. Grabbed a rubber ring and headed to Ruakuri Cave with the rest of our group. Over 3 hours we took leaps of faith over cascading waterfalls and floated serenely down an underground river as we enjoyed the glow-worm show (they're actually glow-maggots! Not as good for advertising though!) All done 65 metres underground in times of complete darkness. Was pretty cool! We got soup and bagels afterwards which came with the price as it was bloody cold water.

After a good afternoon in Waitomo we headed for Taupo at 19:00, arriving at 21:30. An amazing drive, driving past about 5 cars in one hour. All cross country roads with plenty of sheep along the way.

Once in Taupo we got given the keys to our room at a Hostel next to the Lake. Went to the pub for a couple of bevvies and watched the Cricket. Chino is praying for good weather tomorrow.

Chaggie x