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Published: October 2nd 2008
1 NZ Auckland
Precious trains hard every dayWe spent 10 days in the North Island where it’s very wintery! There are daffodils & lambs all over the place so spring is coming. In a place that’s popular for skiing there’s usually about 1½ metres snow on the mountain. This year 4 metres fell so the skiers are hoping for an extended season. Precious met us at the airport where he was recognised by passers by. He & Liz made us very welcome & we used their home as a base for our travels around the island & even used Liz’s car on our first day. We picked up a rental car later.
Every day Precious arranges his double garage as a gym & does a rigorous routine of keeping fit. I went in there with my camera, NOT my trainers & shorts. He also demonstrated some power lifting. We looked at some of the trophies & medals in his collection too.
We caught up with some of the Olympics on the final day. It has been quite strange seeing snippets, mostly in USA, & not really knowing much about the GB achievements.
Our first trip was north & west to Dargaville & the Kauri forests. We stopped to
2 NZ Auckland
He has a routine .... gaze in wonder at the God of the Forest (Ta Mahate) 2000 year old tree with a girth of almost 14 metres. Stopped at Opononi. When Janet looked out of the window she spotted a dolphin swimming in the bay just across the road. Next day we walked through some glow-worm caves. Amazing sight, thousands of lights from the ends of all the grubs attracting insects to their webs.
Our next trip was southwards & the first stop was the Waitomo glow-worm caves where we were taken by boat through some enormous underground caves. There were many thousands of glow-worm lights high above us. This place is even bigger than the other one. Glow-worms of this kind are only found in Australia & New Zealand. As we travelled on towards Taupo we turned a corner & we were faced with a view of beautiful snow-capped mountains. We checked in to a Taupo lakeside motel & in the morning there was a thick frost on the car but the view from our window was just unbelievable. Calm blue water with clear blue sky and mountain peaks covered with snow on the opposite side of the lake. Near Taupo is Huka Falls,
3 NZ Auckland
...this is next... a waterfall as stunning now as it was the first time we saw it. On that occasion there were fewer safety features around & I remember being terrified for the children. It’s easy to spend a long time watching water. It is mesmerizing & the sound of Huka Falls is deafening. We did eventually leave & move on to see the ‘Craters of the Moon’ where hot, steaming holes are puffing & mud pools are bubbling & if anyone landed there from another planet & was told they had landed on the moon they would not argue. We drove on to Rotorua & went to a Maori pa to join in a greeting ceremony & watch some Maori entertainment. The motel that night had a hot outdoor swimming pool, very hot mineral baths and hot spa. We used them all. Before leaving the hot springs area we watched the Lady Knox geyser (pronounced guy-ser) & walked round that mud pool area and the Champagne Pool. That’s another place that can take ages longer than expected because it has to be seen to be believed. The final part of that journey before we returned to Precious & Liz in Auckland, was
4 NZ Auckland
...now this... north round the Coromandel Peninsular. Some lovely lookout stops on that route.
While in Auckland we played bowls on two days. We had phoned Joy, the sister of a bowls player back home. Joy, her husband Frank & the whole club of 300 members (we didn’t meet them all) made us extremely welcome. They play on an all-weather surface in the winter. It was SO difficult. We were rubbish. but it didn’t matter. We won the wooden spoon!
This has been a busy 10 days but as we move on we are going to the South Island next & we’ll really feel at home & have lots of things to do & people to see.
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