We woke up in Lake Taupo and got on the road thinking we were going to Auckland. However, after consulting with the calendar, we realized we had an extra day more than we thought. April Fools! We’re heading to Waitomo Caves instead.

There is a cave system here that is famous for it’s glow worms. These are organisms that let down a florescent thread that glows in the dark. There are thousands of them on the roof of the cave and they create a really cool scene.

Some people take a boat ride through the cave system, but we opted for the tubing option. We signed up to go with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company.

We put on helmets with headlights and an ultra thick wetsuit to protect us from the very cold water.

There was a strict no camera policy on the trip, so unfortunately I don’t have any photos from inside the cave system. We each had our own tube and we did a series of jumps in the water. At several points, we cut off our headlamps and looked up at the thousands of glow worms on the roof of the cave.

There was also eels in the water too! One came up and snapped at the camera strap of the guide who was taunting it. The water was very cold and even in our thick wetsuits, we were a little chilly.

After, we set up at the Top 10 campa park. Waitomo Caves is a pretty small town but luckily there was a brewery (King’s County Brewery) and a pizza place just across the street. We woke up the next day and began our drive into Auckland, which is New Zealand’s most populous city by far.

Auckland is much more congested than any other city we’d been to in New Zealand, so we made the decision to drop our Jucy Van off early. We put 2,400 kilometers (about 1,450 miles) on her and spent 10 nights sleeping in the van. We’ll miss our Jucy Campa.

While we were sad to see her go, it was nice to sleep in a proper bed. We checked into Base Backpackers (the same chain we stayed in Queenstown).