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Published: August 9th 2007
Rabbit Shearing
Slightly disturbing!Waitomo and Roturua
Australasia » New Zealand » North Island » Rotorua By Where Are Lucas and Laura
March 27th 2007
After all the warm hospitality we'd been enjoying in Auckland we finally dragged ourselves away to begin our Magic Bus trip. The struggle of the early morning start was lessened by Scottie, our friendly and helpful driver and after a few pickups around the hostels in Auckland we hit the road. After 3 and half months doing pretty much everything ourselves on this trip we instantly began to enjoy the luxury of Magic being able to book any tours/accommodation for us on the day, so all we had to do was decide what we'd do and where we'd stay afterwards!
Our first proper stop was Waitomo, which is mainly famous for its glowworms and the caves they're found in. As well as a basic, nice and gentle boat tour you could opt for abseilling, black water rafting (don't ask) or other crazy stuff like that. In the end we went for the cheap dull option and just took a boat through the caves but the glowworms were pretty good so we were glad we'd done it. The
Waitomo
The first of what will most likely be millions of 'a bit Lord of the Rings, don't you think?' photos! Magic bus stops for 3 hours in Waitomo which means once you've finished your activity, you can jump straight back on and head
to the next stop, or stay for the night if you want to. Having been stuck in a few small 'one trick pony' towns in previous places already we were happy to head off. Have we mentioned we're liking how the Magic Bus does things yet?
So, next stop later that afternoon was Rotorua. This place has a few cards up it's sleeve and we managed to keep oursleves and our wallets busy for a couple of days! We headed in the evening to the Tamari Maori Village for a really interesting and entertaining cultural experience followed by a traditional Hangi (cooked in an oven underground) meal. So much food! Plenty of Kiwi favourites served up, including Lamb and Pavlova (don't even try to tell the Kiwi's you'd heard that was an Ozzie thing!).
The next day we forced some brekkie down (still full from the Hangi) as we'd need some strength for our morning of white water rafting on the grade 5 Kaituna River. Although it's a short stretch of river it's pretty hairy
in places, prime example being the 7m waterfall that we went over! We survived the drop and stayed in the raft, but some
We should mention at this point that it had been raining on and off basically since we left Waitomo and although we had the afternoon free, the weather wasn't giving us too many options. In the end we headed over to Kuirau Park, just behind our hostel, to check out the volcanic pools of boiling mud. The whole town smells sulphur-tastic as a result of all these spots (which are everywhere around the town too) but they're quite an amazing sight, and they pop up all over the park - the really new ones just have to be fenced off with tape! Having got quite wet by now (from rain not hot mud!) we decided to call it a day as we pass back through here at a later date anyway, so we can always see some further sights then.
And now we're heading to Taupo and the rain hasn't eased, but we'll let you know the situation next time, so ta-ta for now...
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jenny
non-member comment
You two keep getting browner and browner.... stop it! So strange to see you guys in the same waterfall that I drowned in! Have a great time, miss you x x x