Blogs from Waitomo, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

Today we went on a day trip to Waitomo caves. It was an early rise and long-ish journey, but still well worth it. Unfortunately due to the coach time we only got an hour in Waitomo, so we had to do the shortest tour available (45 minutes). I really fancied a tour where you got to slide down a slope and jump of a waterfall, but that took 2 1/2 hours The caves were amazing. They are full of Glow Worms, which when in the dark do just that. The tour guide took us down into the caves and explained about them, the caves and then boarded us onto a boat. He took us into what would have been a pitch black cave if it wasn't for the thousands of glow worms above us.....amazing. Unfortunately ... read more

Jaysus!! (As everyone as now started saying) Got up early again!! (these early starts are starting to kill me). We stopped of at the Te Puia geothermal reserve. At first I thought bugger this I've already seen geysers in Bolivia, but I went along anyway as the Bolivian ones were viewed in mainly the dark. At first we were going to follow a guide around but she wanted to go and show us the meeting house and gift shop to start off with - so we bolted as we were pressed for time. The hot pools and geysers were far more impressive then any thing Id seen before. In fact they were real geysers (spurted out hugh columns of water 5 metres high.) The prince of wales geysers was the most impressive, named due to the ... read more

We bid adieu to Barbara and Steven, our hospitable bed and breakfast hosts in Auckland, and made our way down to the CBD (central business district) hoping to find a bookstore open on Waitangi day, New Zealand’s July 4th. Unfortunately, the stars had not aligned in our favor this morning as most Kiwis’s had favored a day of rest over hocking books to tourists. After some hemming and hawing, we accepted our defeat, bought a bottle of water for the road and set off towards our first driving destination - Otorohanga. As I honed my right-hand driving skills, (me in the right seat with the car in the left lane), Gina played navigator, closely examining maps in her lap and the passing highway signs. A few kilometers outside of Auckland, the scenery quickly changed from urban ... read more

So, wow. I have to say New Zealand is amazing, but damn does their internet suck. I can't get into anything here, so I'm sorry but until I get to a better computer, these are going to be super short entries and no pictures :( ... I really hope I can find something soon! I left home on Monday and made it here on Wednesday (the 16th didn't really happen for me...). We flew on New Zealand Air, and wow, they have an amazing airline with the best in-flight entertainment. We flew into Aukland around 7 am Wednesday; I have never seen an aerial view more amazing than that! The coastline was mountainous and just inland was cloud cover. Gorgeous. Aukland is fantastic; we went up One Tree Hill which overlooks the entire city. The hill ... read more

We arrived in Otorohanga after a scenic drive through green hills and rocky landscape. We were however eluded by rock formations and waterfalls that were on the map but somehow Kendra's directions giving never got us to the right spots! We stayed at our first hostel of the trip which turned out to be quite good, we would recommend the Oto-kiwi Lodge if anyone is ever in the area. The Kiwi House was just around the corner from us so we went and saw a couple kiwi's poking around in the dark and walking back and forth. All very interesting! We then saw a bunch of other native birds and lizards. On the 10th we did our blackwater rafting tour which consisted of walking over slippery rocks in the dark, jumping off waterfalls and floating down ... read more