Twinkle, Twinkle Little Worm

The only thing Waitomo is known for is these little worms that live on the ceilings of underground caves. The worms are the pupa of what will become a little fly - a sad little fly that has no mouth and therefore only lives 2-3 days. This seems an unusually cruel trick of nature - that, and having your poo glow while you're a worm. That's right, glowing poo. Pretty cool.

Since we've traveled all this way to see glowing poo we were going to do it right which in NZ means taking an adventure tour. Our trip, called Tuma Tuma Toobing, consisted of four hours (2.5 of it underground) in full on black wet suits, white rubber boots, and red hard hats with miner lights, slithering around wet caves. It was so cool. The water was freezing as you'd imagine (it's almost winter here) but we moved around a fair bit which made it bearable. Lots of time was spent on our hands and knees crawling through the smallest of spaces. At one point, we reached an impasse where we were floating with our head on one side of a rock formation and our feet on the other side. When the guide yelled "go," they pushed our head under the water and pulled us up by our feet on the other side. This is NZ fun and it's just that - really fun. My feet were a little worse for wear at the end of the day but it was all worth it. The glowworms were amazing and the climbing, crawling, and awesome outfits were equally cool. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Next we visited Rotorua, a town nicknamed "Sulphur City." With the smell of egg salad in the air, we visited one of the thermal pools where you can lounge in pools of increasing temperature increments from 36 to 43 degree C. This was a great way to unwind after a day of crawling around in the mud with worms with glowing poo.

Lake Taupo was next, the largest lake in NZ -606 square kilometers. After a short drive from Rotorua, we settled in a nice guesthouse and went off to have a picnic and get a preview of tomorrow's activity.

Michael's belated birthday present is to go skydiving. Yes, skydiving. While it seemed a big deal when I thought about it back home, here it's happening all around you so you'd feel like a wimp if you weren't doing it. That said, I'm going too. While picnicking on Lake Taupo we saw them coming down every 15 minutes or so. While it looks super scary I can't wait.