Well we’ve just completed our first full day in New Zealand, and we seem to have packed a lot in already.
After landing late afternoon yesterday in Auckland (without replicating the passport incident of 2013) and then promptly driving straight out of Auckland (avoiding the GPS incident of 2013 and listening to Crowded House all the way – didn’t have any Split Enz), we crashed out in Hamilton for the evening.
This morning we headed to Waitomo Caves, famous for black water rafting (nope), abseilling (nope) and glow worms (yep, sign us up). Our small tour group headed into the darkness, where we gently floated through the caves marvelling at the bioluminescent beauty. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, water dripping and boat instability rendered my photos into nothing more than a few green dots in a sea of blackness, but it was super impressive in the flesh.
Thankfully the second cave we saw was drier, and no boats were involved, but there weren’t any glowworms either. You win some, you lose some. Our guide was very knowledgeable on both the biological and geological aspects of the caves, but if he hadn’t provided enough natural wonders for the day, we discovered there was a Kiwi House just down the road. Seeing a kiwi was high on Holly’s list of things to do while we’re here, so in we went.
Having never seen one in the flesh, I didn’t realise how large kiwis could get. It’s basically the wombat of birds, including a tendency to run at humans, as demonstrated when feeding time came around. The other native birds at the centre certainly took a backseat in the popularity stakes, though it was hard to ignore the rather massive NZ Wood Pigeon that decided to land on my head when we walked through his enclosure.
Moving on from the Waitomo area (with a brief detour via Te Awamutu – home of the Finn brothers), we’re now in Matamata, where tomorrow we’ll be venturing to Hobbiton. Let’s just see what kind of a “Good morning“ that will bring.
We loved Waitomo too! But we opted FOR abseiling and tubing.