Halloween: 5 After Dark Experiences

Well, I've missed Halloween by a week, but I though I'd share with you some of the spooky places I've been. Because I'm told everyone loves Halloween. I don't really do spooky or Halloween so the 5 things I've included here are more... embracing the dark than aiming for scares.

1. The Tower of London

Or any other castle for that matter. OK, I'll admit that most of the Tower isn't spooky. In fact, it's pretty damn fascinating. But there's little areas where it just makes you shiver. I'm no great believer in the paranormal, but you can understand why, when so many people were executed at the Tower it might make you feel a little uneasy.

I'm sort of tempted to have a wander around Tower Hill in the dark the next time I'm in London...

2. York after dark

The city of York with its hundreds of years of history and maze of narrow streets lends itself to ghost stories. I took a ghost tour there years ago with school and while the tour itself wasn't really up there in the scary stakes, wandering around the city at night could get quite creepy. Traipsing through the little snickelways where the buildings in places nearly meet overhead was especially cool.

For sheer bloody history, head up to Clifford's Tower, the largest remaining segment of the old York Castle. Here in the Middle Ages the city's persecuted Jewish community holed themselves up to find protection from an angry mob. The tower, then the keep of the castle, came under siege and eventually the families inside committed suicide and set the tower on fire rather than fall into the hands of the mob. A rather black mark on English history...

3. Waitomo Glow Worm Caves

Not so much spooky as surreal, the Waitomo Caves in New Zealand are famous for their amazing glow worms. There are a series of caves at the site, all of which have their own unique appeal. In Ruakuri Cave all the lights get turned out and you can walk conga-style through the dark with just the pale blue lights of the glow worms to show you where the walls are, while in the main Waitomo Cave you go on a boat ride along the Waitomo River, lit from all sides by so many glow worms it feels like you're outside under stars. An amazing experience and one I would highly recommend.

4. Starlight Kayaking, West Cork

Picture this. A wide calm bay bounded by hills. You're in a kayak floating along, barely paddling. Just ahead your guide shows the way, with you trying to keep sight of the flashing light on his kayak. And over head a sky full of stars.

Yeah, starlight kayaking's a pretty magical experience. On our trip in West Cork every stroke of the paddle set off sparks of bioluminescence in the water. So pretty that our boat kept stopping because my friend Claire was too busy playing with the bioluminescence to paddle.

No worries though because the whole trip was so laid back it didn't matter if we went slowly. Although for scare value, hearing Jim the guide call out "Watch out for the boat" and a second later see a huge half-sunken boat loom out of the darkness a few feet away has to be up there with the best.

5. Camping in the Outback

OK, so it wasn't quite camping. The tents were more like canvas rooms - pretty permanent structures just with canvas walls. Brilliant and maybe a bit more secure than a tent. Didn't stop the friend I was travelling with from waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me there was a dingo trying to get into our tent-room. I'd heard something as I woke up and assumed it was just the noise of one of our sleeping bags. No big deal - I figured he'd just been half-asleep and his imagination had run away with him. But he was insistent. Again, not a problem - there was a catch on the door. And then he goes "but, Zoe, I need the loo". So I had to persuade him there was no dingo and that he'd be fine. Go to the loo and if you're not back in ten minutes I'll go and get the guide.

Suffice to say he managed to get back to the tent-room in one piece. Although... he had seen a snake outside the toilet block. Oh dear.

So there's my 5 things to see and do for an amazing after dark experience - or Halloween if you're that way inclined. Have you had a spooky experience while travelling? Done any amazing things after dark? Why not share them here.

"English speaking people crouch down so the others copy you"

Long blog title is long.

The day began with a trip to a shop to finally buy some jade, given that we'd been saying for most of the trip that we wanted some. Jade was bought. I acquired a manaia, which is a little protective spirit type thing. He's called Nessie because it looks a bit like a sea monster.

Then we had a very short trip down to Lake Rotorua which stunk of eggs courtesy of it being a volcanic lake. There was also a posing seagull.

Then came the drive to Waitomo. The sat-nav insisted on sending us down the back roads again, but we'd got used to it by that point.

Waitomo was damp. First up we headed to Ruakuri Cave. 2 hour walking tour ensued, which took in some amazing formations and awesome little glowworms. I have no good pics of the glowworms, but here's some half-decent photos of fun geology.

At one point Meg, our guide, turned all the lights out and we went through the passage conga style. Amy and Claire walked into a post. The ceiling was covered in glowworms and they were reflected in the river below the path. Actually, the Maori name for glowworms means something like stars reflected in water.

After Ruakuri, we headed down to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. This started with a little walk around with an excellent guide (who's name, unfortunately, I didn't catch). At one point, seeing that a lot of the group weren't following her instructions to be able to see the glowworms, she loudly announced "English speaking people, crouch down so the others copy you." It made us smile.

Walking section over, we headed down to a little jetty on the Waitomo River within the cave and took a little boat ride into the dark. This was amazing. The ceiling was absolutely covered in glowworms, the only light in the cave. The guide steered the boat using cables strung across the cave and finally, after going round in circles straining our necks to gawp at the pretties, we headed out along the river to another jetty. All the awesome.

And then came the drive to Auckland. Which was fine until we got to Auckland proper and the sat-nav was incredibly unhelpful. We had to drive round in circles looking for the hostel for ages. Not fun. We do not like driving in Auckland.

"Unless one of you particularly wants to get into bed with me..."

Two part booking/planning session today. Looks like we've got the car hire booked, which also covers the ferry crossing between North and South Island. Hurray! Claire decided we need a sat-nav. Anyone would think she didn't trust my navigation skills...

On the subject of navigation, my New Zealand road atlas has also arrived, so obviously instead of helping Claire and Amy to find suitable hostels, I spent the first part of the booking session sticking tabs in the atlas at all the pages we could possibly need. I like maps - it had to be done.

In the later booking session, we got a few more hostels booked, plus "The Trilogy Experience" - which basically means we get to go to Hobbiton, the Maori experience of Te Puia and Te Po and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. So now we've got most of the major expensive things booked. All the fun.

We seem to have mastered the art of finding hostels with 3 bed rooms so we can get a room to ourselves. Hurray. Of course, this might still mean bunk beds, sofa beds and possible sharing of double beds, but who cares? Extra privacy!

Tomorrow, we're heading up to Whitby to test our navigating skills. Or rather, how well I can explain to Claire which way she needs to go. Should be interesting. We also want to find a "Welcome to Whitby" type sign so we can grab a photo of it. There's a Whitby just outside Wellington in New Zealand and well, it kind of has to be done.

And of course, I only remember as I'm about to post this that Beak the mascot failed to make an appearance. Oh dear. She'll just have to come to Whitby with us tomorrow.