After an easy start this morning, we wound our way up out from the coast towards the Waikato region, and the land became less England and more N.Z. again as we soon started to traverse road ledges and switches once more.
We found ourselves out by a volcanic beach at one point, so stopped to take a few pictures, as the sand was black.
This picture doesn’t do it justice though, as in the bright sun, this stuff sparkled and shone! And it was sooo warm!
Looking back over the way we had come, we could still see Mt. Taranaki wreathed in cloud as our backdrop, stunning stuff.
After that we pressed on towards Waitomo, right up until we came to a roadblock as apparently there had been an accident on highway 3 that had closed the road. No problems we thought (in a N.Z. accent, of course), we’ll take this handy diversion road.
Diversions in a land with few roads though can mean a looooooong way round. Huge amounts of switchbacks, steep climbs, steep descents and then to top it all, and unsealed road for ages! Felt very sorry for the biker we passed as we spat stones and left huge clouds of dust in our wake!
Made it to Waitomo though, and got fleeced for a couple of short tours underground. The first, the Aranui cave system was very pleasant, as Suz and I were the only two people on the tour! Hehehe! We got the run of the cave as we went around with our guide, Blake. Some nice stalactites here, and some good examples of flow stone too
and after that, we went straight on to Waitomo and the glow worms. The caves here are nice too, but they’ve been paved and railed etc. in order to better suit the thousands of people that pass through these caves each year now, all to see the glow worms (or snot beasts!).
On the ceiling in the darker parts of the cave, small worms have made their home and they ‘fish’ for other bugs to eat by attracting them with a glow, and then snaring them with a fishing line of sticky gloop hanging beneath them, sounds grim, but they are amazing!
We then climbed into a boat on the underground stream, switched off all the lights, and made the Japanese tourists shut up, then drifted up the river in the pitch black and in total silence, necks craned back to look at the stellar ceiling, lit by constellations of glow worms. I can see why this place rates as one of the top visitor attractions to N.Z. – if you ever get this end of the planet, you must come and see these things.
Trouble is, you can’t take photos of them (the one I’ve got here is stolen!), so here instead is a fern, right outside their cave!
Looks more like a triffid to me, run before it spits at you!
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