Advertisement
Published: August 24th 2008
We've been in New Zealand over two weeks so it's about time we told you what we've been up to.
We arrived in Auckland on the 12th and stayed a few nights in a fantastic hostel. It was initially built for the Queen of Tonga and so it was very posh (for a backpacker's hostel). We then collected our motor home and we've since been driving around the North Island. We first made our way to the very northern tip, to Cape Rienga, where it was wild, rugged and very beautiful. It used to be a manned lighthouse and it must have been an incredibly tough life for the keeper. On our way back down Nick had New Zeland's best fish and chips at Manginui which is right on the coast and the fish are caught fresh each day.
We then went to the glow worm caves at Waiomio where there are 12,000 of these little creatures about the size of a match stick. In the dark they light up the cave roof like galaxy after galaxy of bright stars. One particular part of the cave is called the milkyway and that's exactly what it looked like - it
was spectacular!
Moving on, Jen went Scuba diving at Poor Knights Island - one of the worlds top ten dive sites. We're both qualified divers already but Nick didn't fancy the boat ride over the very choppy seas. Anyway, Jen dived two sites including her first cave dive and got up close with a stingwray. She loved it! (We won't mention that she was sick in a bag)
We then went to Waitomo, also world famous for it's glow worms, and had a day exploring the caves. This involved abseiling down in to an underground river and wading through the icy water into a an underground chamber to view more glow worms. We then used big rubber rings to raft, in the dark, through the cave network before wading back to the start and rock climbing out of the ground. The whole thing invlolved creeping along narrow ledges and shimmying past eerie rock formations with just a head tourch to light the way and there were definately a few adrenaline moments!
After this we went to Rotorua which has underground thermal pools and water literally boils out of the ground. The smell of sulphur hangs in the
air like rotten eggs and it's a big tourist destination. There are lots of mineral enriched thermal pools and we spent several hours soaking it up in an outdoor spa with 40 degree waters.
We're now in Taupo and hiked the Aratiatia walkway yesterday past the Huka Falls. The area's main attraction is the huge lake and the extreme sports, so we'll see what we get up to....
We've been spending some nights freedom camping and other nights at the relative luxury of campsites. We've gone to sleep at the side of a lake in a tremendous thunder storm and, on another occassion, woke up to a glorious sunrise at Wehiwehi beach. It's winter here and the weather is very changeable but, when it is fine, the scenery is very beautiful.
We're headed further south and expect to be on the South Island by the weekend were we'll update you then.
Keep the comments and messages coming,
N&J
x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.104s; Tpl: 0.032s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0524s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Graham D
non-member comment
Fascinating
Thanks for keeping us all up to date guys, its great to hear about your experiences. I did ww rafting at Huka - I 'd recommend it if your still there. Gray