After intently studying our guide books, piles of travel brochures, and various websites, we decided to take a 3-day trip to Waikato and the King Country region of New Zealand. About 2.5 hours south of Auckland, the Waitomo glow worm caves were our primary destination, with some very cool pit stops along the way.
Our mapped out killer tourDay 1Friday morning we walked to Jucy and rented out a relatively cheap campervan. With 2 beds, a table, kitchen (including sink and gas stove), fridge, and MP3 jack, it was decked OUT. The only drawback was driving around in a bright green and purple van with the creepy Jucy woman on our car...
Nevertheless, we loaded up the van and were off. Our first destination: Bridal Veil Falls. A short 10-minute hike almost seemed too small a price to pay for such a magnificent sight--a waterfall gushing over an outcrop of resistant basalt left from an ancient lava flow. And with a faint rainbow and impressive 180 foot drop, it was one of the best I've seen.
After eating a quick lunch in the camper van at the parking lot, we continued to Raglan, a town famed for its surfable beaches (sadly it was too cold for that now). We passed through town and stopped by the information center, and then drove along the coast, which provided some scenic views of the ocean.
We continued along the road, which suddenly turned into a steep, windy, narrow dirt road. We were aiming for Te Toto Gorge, but our guide books hadn't mentioned anything so gnarly, so we assumed we were lost. Luckily we kept at it, and just after nearly deciding to turn back, we rounded a bend and saw what looked like a massive cliff in the hillside. Unfortunately the lighting was iffy, so the picture isn't too spectacular. It was definitely much cooler in person. A small path on top lead to the edge of the gorge, providing a hair-raising view of the sheer drop to the rocks below.
By now it was nightfall, and we had an even sketchier drive back down the mountain side in the dark. Back at Raglan we had a quick bite to eat, and then we drove in search of a campsite. At this point, disaster almost struck. To tell a long story short, a series of unfortunate events led us to getting the camper van stuck in the mud at a "campsite" (that the woman at the info center had recommended to us), which turned out to actually be a giant waterlogged field of grass. After cursing our dumb luck, knocking on some doors, almost getting attacked by a pit bull, and meeting some kind locals, the owner of the campground (who was previously AWOL) came and somehow rescued us with her 4-wheel-drive station wagon. The funny part of the story? We ended up paying the woman $10 each for saving our asses (the actual cost of the campground was $5), but that was still $7 less than a pricey campground we had passed earlier. After cleaning out the mud from the floor of the van, changing into some dry clothes (did I mention it was raining the whole time this happened?) and transforming the camper into sleeping mode, we curled up in our sleeping bags for some much-needed sleep.
The camper in sleeping mode, with one bed pulled out and the blinds down. There was another bed above that in the top section of the camper. Left to right: Ben, Emily, Krissi (yes, that's a person in the middle).
The next morning we woke up at 7am and drove towards Waitomo to make our 9am reservation with the Legendary Black Water Rafting Co. As we got out of the camper, we commented about how chilly it was. Well it turned out that it was the coldest day of the year so far. Fun. When we went to put our wetsuits on, we passed a tub of water where you wash your wetsuit at the end of the tour, and there was a layer of ice on top! Even the guides seemed a little uneasy, so we weren't feeling too enthused. They suggested we run the provided water shoes under the warm tap before putting them on, as they were practically frozen solid. Getting changed into the wetsuits was plain miserable. The entire time all I thought was, "What are we getting ourselves into? What the hell were we thinking when we booked this reservation, in winter no less?" Fortunately, once we got the wetsuits on, it actually wasn't that bad. And winter or not, we turned out to be VERY lucky. It had been raining for almost two straight weeks, and during flood conditions, they have to close down the caves for safety reasons. Well the caves turned out to be just 1cm below flooding levels. We were on the first tour in 11 days!
After a short drive, we began to "practice" repelling outside the cave on a set of ropes tied to stakes on a steep hill. Except it wasn't really practice at all, because the ropes were so cold and rigid that there was too much friction, so you could lean all the way back without braking at all, and you still wouldn't budge. So when we walked over to the cave entrance, a narrow 110-foot shaft that we would soon repel down, I was feeling a little nervous. Of course I had nothing to worry about, and the moment I started repelling myself down the shaft, I was all smiles. And best of all, after dropping 15 feet or so, there was a significant temperature difference--the insulation of the cave made for a much warmer environment. After wriggling through a narrow opening, the shaft opened up into a wide chamber, except it was quite dark so it was hard to make anything out. As I repelled down I surveyed the layered limestone rock in front of me, until I reached the bottom and one of the two guides undid my safety gear.
**Pictures to come** (we were too cheap to buy the $20 DVD of pictures--the guides had a waterproof camera--but the other family on the tour with us kindly offered to send us the pictures)
After a short walk deeper into the cave, we reached the second element, a zip line. The guides turned off their head lamps before launching you off the edge, and in the darkness the small blue orbs of light from the glow worms were revealed. Next we were given black tubes--the kind you would use in a "lazy river" at a water park. We had to leap off a 10 foot ledge into the freezing cold water below (which, mind you, after examining the depth measure in the cave itself, turned out to be 4 cm
over the flood limit), which literally knocked the air out of your lungs. After recovering from the brief shock of the frigid impact, we floated downstream, gazing up at the glow worms above. They hung from flat panels of rock at various heights on the cave ceiling, some just feet above you, others 30 feet away. It was the most magical experience, like looking at stars in the night sky. I had to keep reminding myself that I was inside a cave, rather than looking up at the Milky Way.
Next we ditched the tubes, and waded/swam/floated through faster currents. The underground river was quite deep due to the high water levels, and the limestone walls of the cave were sharp and rugged, so at times it was hard to maintain our footing. At least that's what I thought, until we turned a corner and then had to walk
upstream, which was significantly harder with such strong currents. Finally, we exited the cave through a room with small stalactites, bringing an end to our awesome 3-hour underground journey.
**Pictures to come**
Planet Earth video explaining a bit about the glow worms:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBIEmjaoE5w
Black Water Rafting advertising video, just to give you an idea of what we did. We took the Black Abyss Tour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3BAPfmUbev0
Our next stop was Kawhia, a very small, remote town on the west coast. On the way there, we stopped to take some pictures of the countryside, as well as some epic group photos, featuring the Jucy van, of course.
Our guidebooks had informed us about a geothermal hot water beach (where you can dig a sand pit and make your own mini hot tub) that was off the beaten track. The weathered remains of ancient volcanic activity, this black sand beach was absolutely stunning. Mountains rimmed the beach to the south, and the exposed sand at low tide added to the impressively expansive beach. Unfortunately it started to rain (like always... winter in NZ is rainy season) and with the wind it was very chilly. I had already spent most of the morning freezing my butt off, so I ended up not getting into the hot pools. I was perfectly content soaking my feet and legs in the hot water. Ben and Emily braved the cold however, and bathed like pros. We found out why Kawhia wasn't a popular hot beach destination, though, (the well known hot beach is on the Coromandel Peninsula) as the geothermal spots proved quite hard to find. We ended up stealing a family's pool after they left once it started to rain. But hey, less work for us! Before long, night began to fall, and we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the ocean. After leaving the beach, we found a cheap campsite in town and settled down for the night.
Day 3For our last day, we didn't have too many activities planned, as we had to do 4+ hours of driving to get take a longer route back to Auckland. We took some photo pit stops along the way...
Our first real stop was a short hike to the Mangapohue natural limestone arch. Originally an extensive cave, the arch is the only remaining part of the ceiling of the cave, which caved in on itself some time ago as the underground river eroded the cave's walls.
After a bit of a drive, we stopped at the Maungatautari Ecological Nature Reserve, a fenced-off enclosure built to restore certain endangered native bird populations, which have severely declined after the introduction of invasive predator species, like possums. The reserve had some nice tracks, as well as a 16 meter canopy observation tower. But it was definitely a little eerie, and sort of reminded me of Jurassic Park. There was a pair of double metal gates which you had to buzz yourself through in order to get in and out.
View of the canopy from a 16m tower
The double buzzer gates
Finally, we drove back to Auckland, bringing an end to our amazing trip. It sure felt like we were out there for more than 3 days based on the area we covered. Not bad for a first weekend trip!
Auckland from the ferry
Rangitoto from the ferry
Rangitoto wharf
We took a meandering route to the summit, which turned out to be a great decision, as we steered away from the crowds. The volcano's crater was very overgrown, so that was bit underwhelming, but the view from the summit more than compensated. A broad shield volcano, Rangitoto is only 850 feet high, yet it still provided a miraculous 360ยบ panorama of Auckland and the surrounding area.
After eating and relaxing at the summit, we hiked down a ways and ventured into the lava tubes. Lava tubes are a natural formation that occurs when a lava flow is exposed to the air, and so the outer layer cools and hardens. The inner core of the lava flow is still hot and insulated, however, and so it continues to flow until the eruption ceases. Afterwords, a hallow lava cave remains.
Finally, we hiked down the summit track until we reached an open field near the bottom that we had passed earlier, where we played frisbee until we had to catch the ferry back to Auckland.
