New Zealand North Island

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February 4th 2009

Published: February 4th 2009

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Rick and Steph

Auckland skyline

New Zealand North Island 12th Nov - 27th Nov

So, as you can tell we're pretty far behind with our blog now. A lot of this is to do with the amount of camping we've been doing where the only internet is our built in flysheet. Now we are in Bangkok waiting for our visas for India to be processed, we have the chance to get up to date so we'll be taking you on a whirlwind tour of the highlights of our travels in New Zealand and Australia. A lot of this will be throught the medium of the photo story. Here we go...
We arrived in Aukland where we stayed for a couple of days and got ourselves organised for a road trip around the North Island. We first of all headed up into Northland in our little hired car. On the way North we visited some glow worm caves and the Rainbow Warrior memorial near where the boat itself is sunk. At the very northern end of the island we went on a bus trip which went all the way to the furthest point North before returning along 90 mile beach which involved driving down a small

Starfish

The were lots of these on the beaches of North Island.

river past some huge sand dunes which we sledged down. On the way back south, we saw some of the biggest Kauri trees in New Zealand and went to the Kauri tree museum. Back through Aukland, we went to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach where at low tide, hot water rises through the sand and you can dig a hole and have a hot bath cooled by the incoming waves. A pretty unique experience. In the centre of the North Island is the town of Rotorua which is right at the centre of New Zealand's volcanic activity. The ground at the campsite was thermally warmed by rising hot water and there were thermal mud pools and a naturally heated steam cooker. In Rotorua, we went luging down the side of a hill and went to see a sheep show at the Agrodome. We also went to look at some bungy jumping and Zorbing but decided not to take part.
We then paid a visit to New Zealand's version of Old Faithful and went for a walk around some amazing thermal mud pools and volcanic springs. We spent a night at the foot of the mountain used as Mount Doom

The Hunterwasser Toilets

Who would of thought a public convenience could be a tourist attraction.

in the Lord of the Rings films and went for a walk through some of the places where the films were shot. On the way back to Aukland we went to Waitomo which is famous for it's many cave systems. There we went on a tubing trip which involved climbing down into the caves and then floating along an underground river on inflatable tubes. This was great fun and there were also a lot of glow worms on the roof of the caves to look at as we floated by. Before leaving the North Island, we visited a bird sanctuary where they had some kiwis in nocturnal enclosures. The kiwis were a lot bigger than we had thought and were funny to watch as they dug around for bugs. There were a lot of other birds there too and we especailly liked the Kea's which we were to meet again later in our trip.

Additional photos below

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