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Published: January 9th 2007
Our arrival in Auckland greeted us with a some what colder climate than sunny Fiji and soon reminded us of home as the rain set in!
We spent our first two nights in Auckland and treated ourselves to a 3 star hotel! We went to the Sky Tower which at 328 meters wins itself the prize of being the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere. It is used for broadcasting and telecommunications but best of all is home to the most spectacular views of the city. We flew up to the main observatory level in just 40 seconds in the glass fronted and bottom lift, just like the great glass elevator in Charlie and the chocolate factory! And if that wasn’t enough to loose your stomach then looking down onto the road below through the glass floor panels certainly was. Neve absolutely loved it and insisted on jumping up and down on the glass just to see how quickly she could send me grey! A fantastic experience but I was glad to be back on ground level.
We then picked up a campervan and headed north to the bay of islands where we took a boat trip out to
I'm not scared of heights!!!!
Mummy ended up with more grey hairs than daddy by the end of the visit to the top of the sky tower.the hole in the rock and dolphin spotting. We were lucky and had 6 dolphins swimming in front of our boat.
Next stop Kerikeri for one night and then onto Waipoua Forest which is home to New Zealands largest living Kauri trees. Yet again it was raining but we didn’t let that put us off, we threw on our rain macs and trundled on. I was glad we did as I missed the trees in Yosemite and although Steve said they weren’t as big it was enough for me. We then went onto Kai Lwi Lakes but as the weather was still bad there isn’t much life around and so we decide to head to Baylys Beach for the night, Steve thinks he knows a short cut which turned into a very long one with the van running on empty and the rain lashing down but at least we saw some fantastic scenery! Unfortunately the sheep weren’t too good at giving directions but eventually we stumbled upon another human who was herding his cows down the road. The next day we headed east to Otorohanga and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, spectacular natural decorations of stalactites, stalagmites and sculptures developed
over thousands of years from water dripping from the roof of the caves or flowing over the exposed limestone walls. We weren’t allowed to take any photos because the flash can damage them but they looked like someone had gone mad with expanding foam! We then went on a small boat in a very dark cave to see the glowworms, it was very magical just like a sky full of bright twinkling stars! Then just down the road we went to The Shearing Shed where we saw the biggest German Angora rabbits I have ever seen and we even saw on being sheared, quite bizarre!
We then headed south to Lake Taupo which was my favourite part of NZ where we went swimming in natural thermal springs of 38-41 degrees! We also watched the flooding of the dam on the river Waikato, thousands of gallons of water rushing down through the rocks, talking of water we also went to the Huka Falls which gave a similar experience.
We also went to The Honey Hive to see glass fronted hives and free tasting of the honey and home brewed wine!!
Heading back towards Auckland we went to Rotorua which
Where in the world?
I'm sure we will see someone in a minute.......what do you think? has a really unpleasant sulphur smell due to the geothermal activity. We went to see a lake of boiling, bubbling, exploding mud which was really fascinating to watch.
It was then time for our camping days to end and we dropped off our shell before heading back into Auckland to the same hotel we stayed at before and then flew out the next day to Brisbane.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Happy New Year to you all. In Melbourne with Sam and the kids from 8th to 24th Feb - see you there if you are in town. Regards, Bob