Day Three: Hamilton, Wiatomo, Kawhia, Bridal Veil Falls

well again when we woke up this morning, the waves were non existant. a bummer for justin who was hoping for an early morning session. we used raglan as a hub for our travels around the area so we would be back here tonight. Since the waves were so bad, we decided to go into Hamilton for a session at the temple. we got there just after 11, which meant we were late for the 11 o'clock session. so that just means we are really early for the next 1230 session. we waited ad talked to a few of the workers who happened to know our old bishop wihongi. he used to live in this area and was a bishop of a local ward in hamilton. it was fun to meet these people who had such high regards for someone who we loved as well. during our session we met several of his old ward members and extended family. we had a wonderful time getting to know them. after the session we were invited back to howard waetford's house for some lunch. we really enjoyed getting to know this wonderful man and learning about his family. it was truely great. after lunch we headed down to wiatomo which are known for their limestone caves. there are tons of adventures avaliable through them such as repelling, spelunking, black water tubing, and checking out their famous glow worms. we were a bit later than planned so the only thing offered that night was a trip to see the glow worms. we headed down into this giant limestone cavern with stalagmites and stalagtites everywhere. there is this giant chamber in one part of the cave that they call the cathedral and it is huge and gorgeous. they hold weddings and concerts in this underground cave for about 120 people. very cool. than we hoped into a boat and checked out the worms. they are actually fly larva that emit this glow to help them catch other flys to feed on. there were so many in this dark cave that it was like all the stars were out. it is so hard to describe the beauty and the feeling you get fom being 50m below ground on a river looking at these little blue lites above you. Heading into the caves:next place we headed was this little town called kawhia that is set on this bay which was supposed to bo one of the prettiest on the north island. the whole drive out there we never saw one car it was kind of deserted, which made it easy to just stop in the middle of the road and take pictures whenever there was beautiful scenery. these are of the drive out there. The bay Kawhia is onthe town itself was a sleepy little place so we found the access to the beach which was another 10 minutes down the sheep covered road. this beach was absolutely breathtaking. it was a black sand beach with not a single person on it. we stopped at bridal veil falls after taking a small, muddy dirt road back up towards raglan. it is a 125m drop of a cliff after a 15 minute walk/run (it was getting really dark very quickly). that night we continued our LOTR marathon but did not get very far because we were so tired.