Corromandel Peninsula and Auckland

---

Hi Guys,

We decided against trying to drive all the way up to the bay of islands in the little few days we have left. It would just have been to much driving and we wouldn't have enjoyed it. We have been talking to some locals and they have suggested we head up to the corromandel peninsula instead and then we can cut across to Auckland. We stopped of in a town called Tauranga and decided to book a glow worm trip for that evening. We spent the day in the town and enjoyed being beside a beautiful beach. We decided to stay out in a DOC camp ground called McLaren falls park were the glow worm tour was happening that evening. The camp ground was really nice and there wasn't many people there. We met up for our glow worm tour at 8:15 and we found out there was only going to be two couples and the 2 guides as a few people had cancelled. The company is actually run by a young English guy,he emigrated here when he bought the business and he was very nice. There is usually 2 companies running tours on the McLaren lake at night but tonight it was just the 6 of us, sometimes there can be up to 30 or 40 people. So we were very lucky! We got set up with our gear and they explained a few things about our 2 man kayak before we set of into the darkness. Laura was in the front of our kayak and as it got darker and darker it was getting harder to see her. Our guides took us of the lake and up a very narrow river and we could start to see the glow worms in the trees all around us. It was like going through a tunnel full of them it was amazing. This stream is the only way to see them here there is no path you can take. We spent about 15 minutes just sitting in silence watching them before we paddled back out. By now it was so hard to see our guide in front of us. We were only saying afterwords that we never really thought about actually being in a kayak on a lake in the dark, we just thought about seeing the glow wroms. We finished of the evening with a nice cup of hot chocolate and some biscuits. The tour was really amazing we got very lucky with our small group that maybe made it cause i doubt having 30 or 40 people around, you could really enjoy it. Especially if there were a few kids because i doubt you would find many kids who wouldn't be terrified haha! We would recommend this trip it really was great!

The following day we headed on up the coast to see hot water beach. This is a really beautiful beach that at low tide people can dig holes in the sand and hot water comes up thru the sand and creates your own personal hot tub. We spent a couple of hours relaxing in the sun reading our books and watching people surfing and belly boarding. When the tide went out there was so many people digging holes in the sand it was funny watching them working up a sweat trying to keep the sand out. We spent that night in the town of Whitianga. The next day we decided to head to the famous cathedral cove. It was a bit of a tough walk down to the beach but it was so well worth it. The cave is so perfectly formed you would think someone sculpted it. We spent the rest of the day flaked out in the sun, it was another great relaxing day. We spent our last night in the van in a small town called Thames getting our bags packed again after 6 weeks, we haven't missed having to pack the bags!!

We headed back to Auckland to say goodbye to our van and get checked into Base hostel. We will really miss our van it was great having our own space and our own bed for a few weeks. Being in the van was a great experience and we think the best way to see New Zealand, we had an amazing time traveling in it. We didn't get up to a massive amount in Auckland there is not a hugh amount to see to be honset, we just really looked around the city and watched some of the Ironman that was going on. We came by the finish line nearly 8 hours after the start and there was a man in his seventies coming across the line. I'll say no more but it did give us a kick up the ass to do a bit more on the exercise side when we get home.

Tomorrow we catch our flight to Santiago to start the last leg of our trip.

Until then people

Lots of love

Laura and Ian

---