Garden of Tranquility

Because the Little Earth Lodge was quite a walk from the nearest store, and there wasn't a bus stop in sight, there was a feeling of calmness in the small valley the building was in. The first night we cooked some eggs, the owners of the Hostel offered these to their guests for free as their chickens laid them, and warmed up some pasta the German guy staying in the same room as us offered us. Afterwards we watched Lord of the Rings, they didn't have cable television and offered a large selection of movies on DVDs instead.
After a good nights sleep (at last) we played around with the dog until Timo (the German guy) was done doing his chores, he worked there for free accommodation, when he was finished we put on our swimming trunks, a shirt, some watershoes and a helmet and headed off to the caves. After a short walk through some fields and over some stiles we got to first cave, but passed it by as it closed to public (apparently it collapsed some years earlier). The second cave was a little off the track and quite well hidden, its entrance consisting of a steep hole in the ground lined with big boulders. After a tricky climb we entered the cave and walked through water that came up to our ankles, the freezing cold took a few minutes to get used to but eventually we didn't feel it anymore (probably because of frostbite). Inside the cave it was pitch dark and when we turned off our headlights the ceiling was covered in glowworms, shining like stars quite closely resembling an evening sky. This cave wasn't too big and before long we reached the back of the cave and had to turn back. The second cave was quite a bit bigger and, unfortunately, there was a lot more water in there, coming up to our knees at the start and gradually getting deeper as we progressed into the cave. Looking around I noticed what seemed to be a side passage going slightly up from the main passage. Even though when I think about it I get claustrophobic even walking through a normal cave I climbed up there and sure enough it was another passage. I walked through it for a short while, being very careful not to bump my head, and not losing the others (Jasper decided to eventually come after me). After a few small turns there was a pretty big hole in the floor leading to a dark chamber filled with god knows how much water. Even though it was possible to walk past it, the prospect of falling in a pitch-black chamber filled with ice cold water didn't appeal to me very much and we headed back. As we walked onwards towards the end of the cave the water rose steadily reaching up to my chest as we got to the very end, it took quite a lot of willpower to force myself through that water but we all made it through. Despite being drenched to the bone in ice cold water the soft weather quickly warmed us up again as we walked back through the hostel.
Once we got back me and Jasper grabbed our cameras and headed back to take some pictures of the second cave, and sure enough as soon we got to the cave it started to rain. Despite the owners saying it wasn't a good idea to head into the caves during rain we decided a few minutes wouldn't hurt. Sadly when we got the part with the glowworms we found that they didn't give off enough light to be captured on camera. When we got out again the rain had increased exponentially and we decided to run back to the hostel before our cameras got wet. The grass and ground turned into a big muddy slip-and-slide before long and we slipped many times, but fortunately always managed to recover our balance just in time. When we reached the hostel Timo and the owners had a bit of a laugh at our misfortune, we laughed with them because we were accustomed to this kind of bad luck.
That night we made rice with baked beans and meatballs (8 small meatballs :( ), but either because we put too much rice in too small a pan, too little water or because they were electric stoves (or a combination of these) the rice didn't exactly turn out the way we hoped and soon we smelled the distinct aroma of burning food. Since this was the only food we had we ate it anyway, it tasted quite nasty and there weren't enough baked beans to cover all the rice but at least we had salt for flavouring this time.
The second day we headed up to the Whangarei falls. After about half an hour we got the entrance of the park they were in and soon after we got the waterfall. According to my Lonely Planet they are "Not the most impressive but certainly the most photographed of NZ", I had to agree with them on it not being very impressive, but couldn't understand why they were so popular. After we sat there in the sun for a while we decided to look for a Campsite that was apparently close to there. When we got out of the park near the falls we ended up at an entirely different place than we thought, and after walking back and forth a bit trying to find out how this happened we just decided to ask. It turned out that we were not even close the Whangarei falls, and the waterfall we'd seen was just a small one that happened to be in the same park, the actual falls were about 45 minutes walking from there.
Once we got to the falls they were a lot bigger than the one we'd seen earlier and I could understand why they were so popular. The campsite was easy to locate as well and it turned out to be deserted except for a few girls who were staying in the dorm (it was more a Holiday park than a campsite). The main reason for moving to this Holiday Park was that it was a pickup point for the van that drove people to the dive center. After asking the Hostel owner about this and some concerns we had with regards to Jasper's weak eardrums he promptly called up the dive center and put us on the line so we could ask them directly. After a short talk they ensured us that Jaspers ears probably wouldn't be a problem and that we could a refund if they were. So we booked our Dive course and headed back to the Little Earth Lodge.
That night we ate more tasteless rice with baked beans and watched another movie. Junko, one of the owners of the LEL, offered to take us to the Holiday Park next day because she had to go to the city anyway. It seems that every time we prepare ourselves to walk for 5km or more with full backpacks someone decides we need a lift and gives us one. So we arrived at the Hostel a lot sooner than planned, but fortunately the reception had opened just a few minutes before and we could book a place for our tent and drop off our bags while we went to the store to pick up food. Our diving course started on Monday (and would take 4 days), and that Saturday and Sunday we didn't do much. They had a trampoline (which we used a lot), a pool (which was 16 degrees but we swam in anyway), and a lounge with a TV (12 channels, but only 3 different ones which were programmed across 3 channels) and a library (which didn't have that many interesting books).