Background: The Polynesian Maori reached New Zealand in about A.D. 800. In 1840, their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights. In that same year, the British began the first organized colonial settlement. A series of land wars between 1843 and 1872 ended with the defeat of the native peoples. The British colony of New Zealand became an independent dominion in 1907 and supported the UK militarily in both World Wars. New Zealand's full participation in a number of defense alliances lapsed by the 1980s. In recent years, the government has sought to address longstanding Maori grievances.
July 20th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Arriving in the small town of Waitomo it was already very wet, but we figure that we were going caving so we were getting wet anyway. The selection of trips you can do here is amazing but we settled o ... 1 photos[full story]
July 13th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Today started just like yesterday...in the dark. Sunrise is about 7:30am, so naturally with my always waking early habit, I was up well before then. Today wasn't going to be like yesterday, today I wa ... [full story]
June 9th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Today Dom was up at half past 6. Very much cold, and very much still dark. Ate a very quiet breakfast before going outside to wait for the bus. The bus was a bit late, but driven by a very nice englis ... [full story]
April 29th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Waitomo et ses grottes de vers luisants (qui sont en fait des asticots).
Superbe tour cet apres-midi avec un groupe de seulement 10 personnes. On a visite ces grottes donc avec des milliers d'asticot ... 23 photos[full story]
March 16th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves In the morning we headed to Te Puia, which is New Zealand's most well known thermal area complete with geysers, bioling mud, a live Maori arts and crafts centre and a Kiwi bird house.
We then headed ... 2 photos[full story]
March 23rd 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Day 172 - Monday 10 March
Once again I actually like a place but unfortunately its time for me to move on. Its strange that almost everybody we've met had told us the south island is better than t ... [full story]
March 15th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves It’s famous for its Black Water Rafting and Glow-worm. There are a few companies doing the tours.
As usual, we looked for the cheapest. As we have some vouchers from tourist leaflet, so we w ... 9 photos[full story]
February 28th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Thursday, 28 February 2008
Today was a full tour day starting at 8:15 am. There are only 14 people in our tour group so it is a very nice size, plenty of room in the bus, and everyone seems very nic ... [full story]
February 9th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves Hello again! it takes a while to do all this stuff and have been really busy recently sorry!
Right o, we left on our big green bus straight after caving for Taupo (skydive capital - unfortunatel ... 41 photos[full story]
February 5th 2008Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Waitomo Caves With Becs S feeling much better we made our way to National Park and back up to the North Island. This was a sobering thought for us as the realisation set in that we only had five more nights in beau ... 10 photos[full story]
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