Cold Caves and Hot Pools

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I ended up staying for a couple more nights in Taupo after leaving Petra. Lake Taupo is one of the popular stops on the commercial tourist bus routes, and the hostel was full of backpackers (most of them British) who were only there to skydive. As much as I would have liked to, spending $220 on a skydive wasn't within my budget.
I got talking to the only other guest who wasn't skydiving, an Aucklander on her way south. She had heard mention of some free hot pools just out of town and we drove out there in the early morning for a swim. There is a thermal stream in the local park which flows into the waikato river, so you can swim between the hot spring and the cold river water. It was so good I went back there at night with a whole group from the hostel.
The next day I hired out a kayak with the help of Amy, an outdoor educationist, who managed to convince the tour operator that we were capable of rescuing ourselves if things got scary. We paddled out to the Maori carvings at Mine Bay - the work of a master carver in the 1970s to protect the lake from volcanic activity, featuring an impressive face carved 10m high into the cliff. I'll put the photos up as soon as I get them from Amy's waterproof camera. The wind changed on the way back and the lake got choppy, but nothing I as bad as I'd seen on the sea. It did mean that I missed the bus to Rotorua and had to stay for another night.
Rotorua didn't smell half as bad as I'd been warned, I quickly got used to the taste of sulphur in the air. It's another sign of the thermal activity there - there are boiling pools in the local park, and steam belches out of cracks in the ground everywhere.
A real tourist town, there isn't much to do besides the expensive packaged experiences on offer. Historically a spa town, the museum is in the old bath house, and has some of the original baths, and the pipework for the natural heating is still in place.
I took a day out from Rotorua (and spent a little money) to go caving in Waitomo with a couple of friends who had been at the same hostel in Taupo. Waitomo in Maori literally means 'water cave' and the whole area of farmland is networked with a labyrinth of limestone tunnels.
The tour guides took eight of us abseiling into a 25 metre chasm, then down a zipwire to an icy stream. Even through padded wetsuits the water was freezing. We floated downstream on tubes and saw glowworms everywhere - amazing little creatures, and much bigger than I had imagined. After nearly four hours underground we climbed out through a series of waterfalls and some very claustrophobic passageways. This was very much my kind of rock climbing, none of this ropes and climbing wall business.
After some wet weather, things cleared up again as I left for Tauranga. Tauranga is a busy port town, set in a large natural harbour protected by Mt Maunganui and its narrow peninsula. I spent a couple of days there, enjoying the white sand beach at Mt Maunganui and the few walks from the town centre.
It was here that I saw my first new zealand kingfisher in the estuarine wetlands - once I noticed one, I started seeing them everywhere.
I left Tauranga on Wednesday morning with the Coromandel peninsula as my next destination.

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Photos

Waitomo, before the descent
Don't we look happy there in the sunshine?!

'Black Water Rafting', Waitomo
Taken shortly before paddling down the icy stream on rubber tubes.

Sunlight at last!
Down there in the cold and dark for so long, we even forgot our own name...

Pukeko, Coromandel
The smaller cousin to the Takahe, these birds (essentially oversized moorhens) are everywhere, and something of a national symbol (despite being self introduced, and probably Australian in origin).

Kingfisher, Coromandel
Halcyon sancta, the sacred kingfisher. Smaller than those in the UK (I think), but much more numerous here. They live in the mangroves.