Advertisement
Published: February 20th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Rotorua
The "Champagne Pools". Must have been a bad year. With only two flights having landed at Queenstown on our day of departure from the South Island (due to the very strong winds which made one of those planes face the wrong way only seconds before landing) we were quite lucky to make it to the North Island. We picked up our second 'El Cheapo' car and wobbled north to the Bay of Islands, booking a dolphin swim for the next day.
We had hoped that our dolphin swim would be more successful than the failed seal swim, but the one pod of dolphins we found unfortunately had calves with them so we weren't allowed to get in the water. (Laura, the adrenaline junky that she is, had made us sit at the back of the boat with the old women, where it wobbles least, but also where you couldn't hear the commentary, so we're not entirely sure why - to keep them wild we think). We left the dolphins at Cape Brett (world domination still on track dad) and cruised around the bay. It turned out to be Sailing Week, and watching the racing yachts cut each other up at the buoys kept us entertained.
We then headed
Rotorua
Oi Geyser over to the west coast and the Kauri forests, and booked a night walk for that evening. The walk was pretty good with us seeing two cricket things (weta's) that looked like big 'orrible spiders, two actual big 'orrible spiders, two eels with a taste for Colby cheese (and who can blame them - it is a damn fine cheese), a very brave possum who was determined to walk down the middle of the path despite the nine humans on it, and last but by no means least a very rare wild brown kiwi pulling up worms on the forest floor.
From the Kauri coast we travelled south east to the Coromandel Peninsula, unfortunately arriving in the very pretty area on a bank holiday weekend (bizarrely only a bank holiday for some). We battled the waves at Hahei Beach before moving onto Hot Water Beach. Being cheapskates we bypassed the spade stall and made our way down to where the crowds were. Eventually finding some warm sand we twisted our feet down into the sand and found the almost scolding hot water below.
Next stop was Rotorua, the home of nasty smells. After visiting the free park in
town full of foul smelling mud pools, pits and crater lakes we nearly feinted at the price of entering another park, Te Puina, which had all the same stuff plus a geyser. The geyser was pretty impressive though, shooting 10metres into the air. For the rest of our entry fee Andy got to try corn on the cob that had been cooked by being dunked into a thermal pool (apparently not great) and we saw the start of the maori concert. After the 'warriors' came out and we decided they looked about as maori as we do, we left. The next day we visited Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland, which despite the cheesy name, and the fact that we didn't get our asses out of bed early enough to see their geyser, was really quite good. With clothes now reeking of burnt popcorn and eggs (Did we mention it smelt bad??!!) we headed south to Taupo and into the realms of Mordor (said with a dodgy scottish accent for some reason).
We also spent a nice evening with one of Andy's former colleagues Malcolm and his pregnant wife, Emily, who treated us to a bbq and all things kiwi (we were
Coromandel Peninsula
View along the coast hooked on Lemon and Paeroa therafter). Yep they had managed to move from Australia to New Zealand in the same time period it had taken us to.
We left Ohakune and headed for Waitomo, famous for its glowworm caves. We stopped in Te Kuiti just outside Waitomo and splashed out on some much needed haircuts, which spelt the end of Mullet Girl and Lego Man. Too late to go the cave that day we ventured into the rain forest reserve that evening and spooked ouserlves stupid trying to navigate a forest track in the pitch black with our ever fading torch in the name of glowworm spotting. We saw a few before legging it back to the now deserted carpark. The best was yet to come as we entered the glowworm cave the following morning. Within the cave we saw the silk like threads hanging down from one rock face, which the worms use to catch their food. Then, we clambered into a boat in the dark and floated silently into a chamber where everyone on the boat could be head to gasp as we looked up and saw what resembled the night sky with thousands of glowworm stars
Palmerston North
Malcolm and Emily comparing tummies. covering every inch.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0763s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb