16th February 2008, Auckland, New Zealand
What a great day. After the frustrations of the trip on Fiji, we decided not to take the trip to Waitamo Gloworm Caves but to rent a car and do it ourselves, and the volcanic areas near Rotorua if that were possible. We arrived a good hour and a half after our due time and did not disembark until 8.30. However, we were lucky to spot our car rental office on the downtown Auckland map plus it was only 5 mins from the wharf.
We had agreed a car share with a couple of other passengers, Dave and Pat. We were in the outer suburbs of Auckland by 9.00 and after an uneventful ride south on highways 1 and 39 arrived at Waitamo by 11.00. The roads had been empty, as was the countryside - we bypassed Hamilton - and a typical village comprised a filling station, general store, school and community hall; all very British. Things hotted up within a km or 2 from the cave and we even saw 3 coaches, having overtaken our cruise coach some 5km previously. We were processed very quickly and in the cave on our guided tour within 10 minutes of purchasing our tickets. I guess this site gets busy because the management and tour length we obviously measured to achieve fairly high throughput. The first part was the usual stalactites and stalagmites before we had a taster of the glow worms in a darkened area. Finally we were taken down for a pitch black underground ride on a boat pulled along a series of wires. The whole ride was 'lit' by thousands of glow worms Arachnocampa luminosa to give them their correct appellation. This led us back to the outside where we followed the river back to the car park. Certainly worth the trip; and we were through by noon.
And so, to the cross country trip to thermal territory. Although this was not as far it took longer as for much of the time we were on minor roads. Furthermore, the scenery was quite wild. Despite being about half way down North Island, we felt we could have been in Norway or Switzerland. We weren't particularly high but we were completely surrounded by pines and fast rivers and lakes. Eventually, we reached the real back woods and had to rely on signs. Despite M's better judgment we took a turn along Waikite Valley Road to come across valley side releasing steam like and old engine - or at least, like we'd seen on the Azores. Eventually, there was steam escaping in the valley bottom as we had come upon the Wikite Valley thermal pools. These people had captured the (very) hot thermal waters and channelled them into a series of swimming pools. Not having our costumes, but feeling rather cheeky, we asked the owner where we could find the Wai-o-Tapu pools and geysers to find we were only 6kms short.
