Hamilton and Waitomo Caves

August 10-12
We arrived at Vaughn and Maxine’s home for the second time round for the weekend. The weather was fantastic for the first two days and we got to see and do a lot. Friday night was spent relaxing and catching up. Saturday morning we left and drove south to the Waitomo Caves, which includes a town and several caves. It is a very popular tourist attraction in New Zealand as it is an impressive area filled with kilometers of caves hidden under farmland. One of the major aspects of the caves are the “glow worms” which are actually maggots that grow in the cave and feed off of flies that come in on the river below and get trapped in the silk the maggots hang from. They are called “glow worms” because it sounds more appealing to the tourists. We did the four hour “Lost World” tour offered by Waitomo Adventures. The four hours include an incredible 100m abseil down the main hole into a cave that we hike and explore. Once we were further into the cave we got to see the glow worms in full force, it was pretty impressive. What goes down must come up, so you also climb up a 100ft (30m) ladder to the surface. Our guides Allan and Dean were very friendly, professional and knowledgeable. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and definitely recommend it as it is unique to New Zealand. (You are not allowed to bring cameras down into the caves, so the guides take photos for you. For $20 the pictures are yours after the trip).

On Sunday Vaughn took us around the dairy farm despite the rain. Us “city folk” got to help move some cows around the paddocks and took a tour of the farm. We ended up in the barn that had all of the new calves that were between 3 hours and 5 days old. I got to bottle feed one little calf that had buckled feet and was still trying to figure out walking. We also helped Vaughn tag the calves so their ancestry can be tracked. It was very interesting to see all the hard work that is involved with farming and we really enjoyed ourselves. Thanks again to Vaughn, Maxine and Nicole for all of their hospitality.

Up next is the Northlands and it’s hard to believe we have less than 2 weeks left!!
Take care,
Laura

Napier, Taupo and Rotorua

Napier – August 6^th and 7^th

Laura and I arrived in Napier after a great time in Wellington.  Napier is located in Hawkes Bay, wine country region on the East Coat of NZs North Island.  We stayed in the Top 10 resort which is approx. 2km from the town center.

On our way to Napier, Laura and I stopped at a bird sanctuary in Mount Bruce which is home for a couple Kiwi [birds] and several others.  One of the kiwis is white (not an albino, however) which is quite rare.  Kiwis are nocturnal so you have to see them in a kiwi house which is dark during the daytime and visa versa at night.  This way they will be active and walking around during the day.  There were a couple other birds which caught our attention too:

Napier was completely reconstructed after an earthquake in 1932 destroyed the town.  All of the architecture is, thus, of the mostly the same era which is referred to as Art Deco.   To me, it seemed like any other town, but Laura has a better eye for this stuff then I do.

Our first morning we awoke to news that the nearby volcano had erupted.  Mount Tongariro ended up blowing ash to 10000 ft while erupting around 12 midnight.  It was a geothermal eruption (vs. a magmatic eruption), so the local volcanologists were stating that only minor eruptions could be expected in the near future.  Tongariro national park was one of our next stops, but we decided to avoid the area.  The only other impact to us was a find layer of Ash falling down on the town of Napier.  The ash was not grey but yellow like sulfur …. you could smell it too.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky either, so it felt unusual to have the ash fall on us with blue skies.

After being on a strict budget, we took our savings and treated ourselves to a Chefs menu at the Mint Restaurant.  Excellent Value ($55 NZD for the 5-course menu and $40 NZD for wine pairings).  Here’s what we tasted:

Taupo – August 8^th and 9^th

Leaving the town of Napier we headed west to the Center of the North Island to a lake called Taupo.  After visiting Wanaka and Queenstown, we felt Taupo to be nothing too special, and very commercialized for tourists.  That all said, the area is geothermally active, so there is a TON of free walks and sites:

The Aratiatia Dam is supposed to open it’s gates every two hours, but the engineers had it open continuously to complete some maintenance.  Still created a nice set of rapids and falls:

Here are some shots from the geothermal power plant:

 

Next was the Craters of the Moon which is a 1.5 hour walking track through a particularly active area.  There are mud pools, small craters and tons of steam for some Mars like pictures (admission is $6 each!!):

Total spent: $12 … great day!

We stayed in the Lake Taupo De Bretts Holiday Park.  They have some hot pools naturally heated by… you guessed it… geothermal springs.  Laura went for a spa massage and facial and returned very relaxed; I went for a 8km run and came back in pain.  We both then tried out the hot pools and were thoroughly relaxed after about 30 minutes.

Rotorua – August 10^th

As the locals say, “you smell Rotorua before you see it” and this is a true fact.  They also refer to Rotorua as Roto-Vegas, as there are several casinos and it is supposed to be quite the party town.  We decided to keep Rotorua a day trip and visited a couple different volcanic sites.

We were tempted to stop at the Waitumo Thermal Park because we heard they had an active Geyser.  After a little research, I learned that the geyser was man-made.  The park would throw a tub of soap into the mud-pool at about 10:15am daily to get the geyser to erupt.  No thanks, especially not for $35 per person.  Instead, we opted for the mud pools nearby [free, and better!] and had the location to ourselves:

After the Waitumo mud pools, we headed to the Waimangu thermal park.  This one is about the same price, but has fewer tourist trap style gimmicks.  This stop was recommended by Conal’s gf Alena as they had tried out several of the thermal parks.  Waimangu is about a 3km hike downhill to the end, but they have a bus (included in the admission fee) to take you back to the start.  Here are some shots from the day:

Thanks for listening!  Next stop, Hamilton and the Waitomo Caves.  Laura will be on the air soon to give you this update!

-Neal & Laura