North Island New Zealand

The penultimate blog entry for those of you still reading (my sister has freely admitted she has given up so fair play to anyone still bothering – you’re very kind!), this time from New Zealand’s north island. We started from Wellington after a ferry over the Tasman Straight, the capital of New Zealand and a really cool little city with a decent waterfront area. For its size the selection of bars and restaurants is superb (more per square km than NYC apparently), including a pub we went to that stocked over 150 different beers! We also had a quick look round the fantastic National Museum, where the highlight is a colossal squid which was accidentally caught by fisherman and is the largest squid ever caught. It extends to a whopping 8.5 metres and has eyes the size of footballs – that’s a lot of calamari!

The Colossal Squid

Onto Lake Taupo. The biggest lake in NZ - the same size as Singapore. Singapore’s population is 4.8 million (larger than NZ’s at 4.4) so the whole of Singapore’s population live in an area the size of that lake which just shows how amazingly under-populated this country is. We checked out some cool rapids and a couple of the other local sites and moved quickly further north to Rotorua. The drive was pretty spectacular although despite our excitement that we’d be passing Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings fame, it was pretty cloudy overhead so we didn’t get to see it. We stayed a grand total of 2 hours, long enough to check out some bubbling mud pools. The city is renowned for its geothermal activity but all of the sites were massively over-priced and it was chucking it down with rain so we moved on!

Lake Taupo, same size as Singapore

Snow capped mountains outside Rotarua

Rapids outside Taupo

Bubbling mud pools, Rotoroa

Next stop, Waitomo. The attraction here is these caves which are inhabited by glowworms, which we heard about back in May – some guys we met in Laos told us about it. Sarah has been banging on about these glowworms ever since so it was a relief that we were finally there! It was totally amazing though, blackwater rafting through these dark, cold (12 degrees Celsius water temperature) and creepy caves on a tube (inflated inner tube of a tracker tyre). At one point we were 60 metres below ground level and we all switched our helmet lights off to reveal the awesome sight of zillions of glowworms lighting up the caves. We also had to jump off waterfalls with our tubes placed under our bums into raging dark rivers. Well worth the wait. Honestly!

Caves entrance

Suited and hemleted for the caves

Caving crew

Splash!

Splash

Sliding under

Sliding under a low bit

Making our way through the caves

Mind your step durbs!

Exiting the caves

We headed north to the outskirts of Auckland, and the Coromandel Peninsular. One of the cool things about NZ has been the availability of farm fresh fruit and veg at roadside locations. The people here are so trusting and they leave an honesty box for you to leave payment. Can you imagine this on the outskirts of Birmingham? I think not! We also visited a local farmer’s market and stocked up on picnic provisions before we made our way to at Cathedral Cove, which is a white sandy beach accessed via a one hour hike with accompanying arch that has been eroded by millions of years of coastal erosion. There were many fantastic views in the Coromandel and considering it’s proximity to Auckland, it still felt like an unspoilt deserted wilderness!

Loyalty boxes, what a great idea!

Farmers Market supplies

Cathedral Cove

Arch, Cathedral Cove

Arch at Carthedral Cove

Coastal erosion evidence at Cathedral Cove

We finished our NZ adventure in Auckland. There’s not a great amount to report from here apart from Sarah’s has cashed in her lady buyer air miles to stay in The Langham Hotel from where I blog right now! Thanks Durbs. Apart from lapping up the luxury, we have checked out the amazing views from the top of Mount Eden (a dormant volcano, one of several that Auckland was built upon!) and the Auckland Museum which gave us a good dosage of culture and some interesting info about the traditions of NZ’s Maori.

Crater at the top of Mount Eden

Is it really that far home? Top of Mount Eden

Eden Park, scene of recent All Blacks glory....and they don't shut up about it!

At the Auckland Museum

Maori carvings

Maori chap at the Auckland museum

We fly to the island paradise of Fiji tomorrow for our final leg of our monumental journey. Let’s hope we don’t miss the plane home....