Blogs from North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 1151

We get up to get ready to go hiking at Holdsworth Tararua Forest Park. We go into town and have lunch before driving out to the park. As we are driving to the park we encounter three sheep in the middle of the road. They are very skittish so they start running as we approach. They are running down the side of the road and we are nervous that they will dart back out into the road. We really don’t want to hit any sheep in our rent car. We finally pass and get to the carpark at the park. We take a trail called the Holdsworth Lookout Walk that is about a two hour round trip. In the beginning there is a picturesque stream, the Atiwhakatu Stream, then it is a continual, steep climb up ... read more

Hi all, We are back on land after a fantastice three day cruise on the bay of islands. We had a grat time sailing (not so much because the wind was lite), fishing, kayaking, exploring islands and eating more food than should be legal. Now we are heading for Waitomo to explore glow worm caves. Yes you heard right, the caves have worms in them that glow in the dark. Last week we were staying at a hostel called the tree house in Kohukohu. They were letting us work an hour a day in exchange for free accomodation, that was a sweet deal. During teh week we went to some fantastic hot springs called Ngawha springs and we hiked for a couple of housrs in the giant Kauri trees. All in all out travels are going ... read more

I am now in Rotorua which is a thermal town with lots of hotsprings and geysers spraying boiling hot water into the air and there is steam and the smell of rotten eggs (sulphur)everywhere. I visited the Polynesian spa today and sat and admired the view and the seagulls beside the lake whilst sitting inside the thermal pool. Jessie and I are enjoying driving and went to see glow worms on a bush walk in Waitomo. The worms made the surroundings look like a fairy tale glen due to their amazing blue light. We spent a few days up in the Bay of Islands which had gorgeous clear seas and wonderful scenery. We took a boat trip out around the islands and saw wild dolphins which swam underneath the boat. We are off tomorrow to Lake ... read more

hello everybody....this is not caitlin. this is melissa. sorry to dissapoint :o) i am secretly logging onto caitlin's travelblog to put up some of the pictures that were on my camera, and not on caitie's. crafty of me, eh? i know that i love to see pictures, so i figured that all of caitlin's fans would overlook the fact that i am not her so that they can see some more pictures. as i have hundreds these are just some of my favs :o) also i know that everytime i read this blog, i wish for more pictures of what i really care about--caitlin. so i'm including lots of pictures of her for you to see, ones that i'm sure she would never put up on her own. hopefully she won't take them down once she ... read more

We rented the car so we could go on a wine tour in the Martinborough Wine Region. I call my mother for her 85th birthday (January 11th in the States) and head out with our winery map. A storm is blowing in and it is raining hard by the time we get into Martinborough. We decide this is a good day to visit wineries and we will do some hiking in the area tomorrow. Two little shops are shown on the map in downtown Martinborough and we think they will have tastings of most of the wine from the smaller wineries, but that is not the case. Their tastings are very limited and they don’t even have many epicurean items. We do buy a bottle of Claddagh Pinot Noir. It is a winery that burned down ... read more