New Zealand, part 1

I'm going to break up the New Zealand story into parts, otherwise it will just be too long. So, part 1...

In early December, my proper travelling started and I left Melbourne behind to spend 2 weeks in New Zealand. Two weeks is barely enough time to scratch the surface, but that's how my plans worked out. I got to see and do some amazing things, so it was still a very memorable trip.

Click here to go to the photos from this part of the trip.

New Zealand is full of unbelievable scenery and wonderful, friendly people. Some people say it's a bit old fashioned there, and it can be, but you can't fault good ol' friendliness and warm natures. New Zealand is made up of two main islands, the North and South Islands. The North Island is more populated and it also has more Maoris, the indigenous people who are similar to people from South Pacific Islands. The country is just a tiny bit larger than Oregon and has only a tiny bit more people. I was often reminded of Oregon when I was there, especially since NZ is part of the Ring of Fire like Oregon is and has been influenced in similar ways by earthquakes and volcanoes. The climate is quite similar, especially on the South Island where it is wet and cool on the west side of the island, but much drier on the east side, due to mountains that catch a lot of the moisture. There are definitely differences though, such as the fern-filled rainforests in the north, and unique animals, such as their iconic kiwi bird.

I flew from Melbourne to Auckland, the largest city in NZ (though not the capital, that's Wellington), where I stayed for a couple of days with a former co-worker of mine and her husband. After Melbourne, Auckland felt rather small. It seemed to miss the vibrancy that Melbourne has. So it was a little disappointing, but it's a beautiful city, surrounded by a lot of water. We went to the Auckland Museum and I started getting more closely acquainted with Maori culture and New Zealand history. The next day we drove to Piha Beach west of Auckland. It's in an area popular with surfers and it's actually a black sand beach, since the rock there is volcanic. It was a quiet, gray day when we were there. Still beautiful though, especially the drive there through thick vegetation, including a lot of fern trees. It looked prehistoric...

Piha Beach

I left Auckland and started my drive south, the beginning of many hours on my own in the car. Fortunately I had tons of CDs of NZ music to listen to, thanks to my co-worker's husband. My first destination was Waitomo Caves, which consisted of a few different caves you could visit. There were also adventure tours you could do, which is very typical of New Zealand. It is the country that invented bungee jumping, after all. These adventures were pretty tame by comparison, things like abseiling down into a cave and then going blackwater rafting. I would have liked to have tried it out actually, but it was bit out of my price range. Instead I did a couple of the normal tours, visiting two different caves. The first, called Aranui, was my favourite, but that was partly because we were a small group of only 6 and we had a wonderful guide who had been working in the caves for about 30 years, so he knew all there was to know about them. The cave is filled with limestone formations. They take some insane number of years to add on just one centimeter of limestone, so it boggles the mind to think how long it's taken a stalactite that's meters long to form.

Stalactites in Aranui Cave

In Aranui Cave

The other cave featured glowworms, which are larvae of bugs that hang sticky strings down to catch other bugs in, then they pull the bug up and eat it. But they glow as well to help catch the bug. This cave had a river in it and we were pulled on a boat through the dark where the glowworms were. The ceiling was full of these glowing blue points of light, like a lot of blue stars. It was absolutely beautiful and we were very quiet because noise makes the worms dim their light, so there was only the sound of the boat a bit and distant dripping water. The tour was marred though by a school group that joined us, a bunch of jaded teenagers who hated being there.

From the caves, I drove to the northeast, towards Rotorua. On the way I drove through a lot of green countryside, filled with sheep-dotted hills. And I stopped at the Orakei Korako thermal area, which I wrote about before in this post. Below are some videos of the thermal features.

Steamy (be glad this isn't in Smell-o-vision, because it was also stinky)

The mud pools (turn up the sound for optimal enjoyment)

Yeah, more mud pools. This one made a particularly slobbery noise, thanks to a bubbling hole at the back to the left.

In part two: the stories of seeing dolphins and going to a Maori dinner.