Auckland, Waitomo caves and Rotorua

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From Sydney, it's a 3-hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, though not the capital, which is Wellington. New Zealand is approximately the other side of the world from the Netherlands; I can't get any further from home! New Zealand consists of two big islands, the North Island and the South Island. Auckland is in the North Island and I start and finish my trip there before flying to the Cook Islands. I have about 4 weeks in New Zealand.

I didn't spend a lot of time in Auckland. Basically, it was a morning walk through the city and chilling out in a couple of parks, besides finding a car rental company to hire a car from. I'll come back to Auckland at the end of my trip and see some more of the city. For now, I'll just leave you with a few pictures of the city and it's parks and buildings.

In late afternoon of the second day, I drove to Waitomo, famous for its caves, and especially the glowworm cave. In the glowworm cave, you first take a walk of 20 minutes to see some of the stalactites and get some information on the glowworms. Then everyone gets into a small boat (without engine) and all the lights go out. Suddenly, there's thousands of small lights all around you as you are traversing the underground river in the little boat. An amazing sight, like a fairytale. I also saw another cave which was also quite nice, but I had been spoilt by the caves in Mulu National Park, so the glowworms were the best experience here.

After the caves, I drove on to Rotorua. In this area, there is a lot of Maori culture, who are the original inhabitants of New Zealand. It's also a volcanic region and there are a lot of geysers spewing hot water in the air. I visited Te Puia, the main park to watch the geysers. There's a boiling rockface from which hot boiling water sprouts up 20 metres into the air. A grand sight. There were also some traditional Maori woodcarvings here, very beautiful.

On the last evening I booked myself on a Maori culture show. It included dinner, which, in hindsight, could have been missed. But the cultural part was excellent and I got to learn a lot about Maori culture, language, customs and music. They also performed the famous "haka", a Maori dance which has a lot of energy and sound in it. Last but not least, I took an hour in the Polynesian spa, where they have relaxing hot baths, warmed by the geysers!

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Comments

[niels]

ooohh ja
Ik zou het wel weten met die Maori cultuur.... Ik zou haar wat showen.... ;-)

[Erik]

Good pics again!
Good pics again, Tony! Seems you are enjoying yourself there at the other side of the world. Like the lighting in several of the maori culture show pictures! Take care, and keep this pictures coming! E.