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Published: December 19th 2007
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Aranui Caves
Amazing Limestone Formations After leaving Rotorua two and a half hours earlier we arrived at Waitomo Caves. It was teeming with tourists hence our visit of the glow-worm caves felt a bit like we were on a conveyer belt one group in one group out. During our descent into the cave we were shown several limestone formations then the guide suggested we have a sing song to demonstrate the acoustics, random but it seemed everyone was up for it so we belted out the cheery christmas carol 'we wish you a merry christmas.' To see the glow-worms we had to board a boat and float through a section of water in complete darkness. The ten thousand worms looked like tiny dots on the cave ceiling, quite stunning. The worms are actually fly larva which emit a glow from their tail to attract flying insects into their six inch sticky yarn. As their life progresses they transform into flies without mouths so sadly their days are numbered to only five making their whole existence about reproduction. Unfortunately we couldn't take photo's but seeing all those glow-worms made for a good memory.
The Aranui caves just down the road were also worth a visit to
Huka Falls
Extremely Fast Water... see the impressive stalagmites and stalactites. Our favorite part of the tour was seeing the Wetas which lived inside the cave looking a bit like spiders with huge long legs and fat bodies. We were glad they preferred living in caves rather than bathrooms!
Next it was onto Taupo, the largest lake in the North Island and again one of the most popular attractions, sadly we didn't see too much of it as it was cold and very windy that day but it did look big. Luckily the following day the weather was better so we managed a short walk around nearby Huru Falls, a magnificent force of naturalness. Looking at how the falls had carved the lake below I began regressing back to 1992 sitting in Mrs Ho's geography lessons...before I could get too carried away No began sneezing uncontrollably and his eyes were streaming; it looked like hay-fever for the second time this year, what a pain, for some reason didn't think hay-fever would be a problem in New Zealand.
Continuing down the north island we stopped at Tongariro National Park keen to do some walking. The Tongariro Crossing is an 8 hour ridge walk across
Tongorio
National Park extinct volcanoes, hillsides and mountain edges, we fancied having a go but unfortunately the predicted weather was quite poor. With snow still present on the peaks it gave us unfavourable odds that we would either freeze or get taken by a large gust of wind. Wanting to see this trip through to the end we opted for a couple of short walks at the foot of the mountains which produced some fabulous scenery all the same.
The following day we decided it was high time we went on search of some Lord Of The Rings locations so we headed for the Mangawahero Falls in National Park. Driving up the road we nearly didn't make it as the road signs were very vague nonetheless we eventually found the spot to see where they filmed a scene we believe was where Golum caught a fish in a stream. Keen to see some more locations we stopped the night at Paekakeriki, again this was another LOTR location, the park behind the beach was where the final scenes of the battle took place. The final part of our free mini LOTR tour found us at Upper Hut, nearby Harcourt Park was the scene
Tongario Crossing
Weather Was Too Bad To Walk The Crossing Unfortunately of the garden of Isengard and further up the road in the national park was the home of Rivendell. Just goes to show if you do a bit investigating you can see some of the locations without spending an arm and a leg on a plush day tour.
Before catching the ferry to the south island we had a day to quickly nip around the capital, Wellington. The city is a very compact and cosmopolitan; the nicest city in our opinion so far. We rode the cable car, took in the botanical gardens and walked along the windy waterfront whilst making the most of our last day on the north island.
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