It's been about two weeks since my last update and I am now back in Aukland. The last few weeks have been spent traipsing around the north island of NZ. Instead of doing a play by play description of what happened I thought I'd share the trip with you via my favorite to least favorite portions.
The first being only a day or so ago before our return to the big city. We spent two nights in a town called Waitomo which is inland but near the north-west of the island. It is an area that is known for its caves and specifically it's glowworm caves. I must preface this little description with an announcement. 'I absolutely love caves and pretty much everything about them!' They are beautiful and eery and spiritual and just dang cool!
So here we are on our last official stop in NZ amongst a giant network of caves. Let's just say pretty much everything we did rocked my socks. Even the simple tour where we just walked through an extremely groomed cave made me happy beyond measure. At one point I was able to find my own little cave that I crawled into and got quite dirty in the process. We floated through a cave on a boat and looked up at thousands of glowworms that made the ceiling look like the night sky. This would have been better had there not been a screaming baby on our boat (just our luck). But by far the best part and the highlight of my trip so far was black water rafting. It was essentially a three hour excursion through a semi-wild cave with floaty-tubes. We jumped off waterfalls and floated in the dark and scrambled over rocks, through crevices. I felt like such a badass explorer and I loved it!!
Moral of the story, caves are brilliant and I probably shoulda been a geologist since geology rocks! (Bazinga!)
The next best part of the tour of NZ's north island had to be this town called Rotarua which is a geo-thermal hot-spot (jeez, with all the puns in this post). It was pretty much a Pagosa Springs (for those of you who know what that is) on steroids. You couldn't throw a stone without it landing on a geyser or in a hot springs. We spent a good three days soaking in every different kind of hot water there was. We did a proper manicured spa type and a wilderness warm/cold river mixed pool.
On top of the ever present hot water and steam that made me feel like we were fresh from a land before times movie, they had an epic museum. Speaking of, one thing I have decided about NZ in general is that they freaking know how to set up a museum. Every one that I have been to here is just great! Let me tell you, I know my way around all different types of museums but they are seriously special here. They make a point to really have an interactive experience that shows their topic on all levels from a bunch of perspectives.
The next place, (but remember I am doing these by enjoyment and not by a timeline) was our visit to the Shire. This one came on the way from Tairua, which I will tell you about, to Rotarua. We did not actually spend the night here but I think it must count.
The Hobbiton movie set is a huge tourist trap in a town called Matamata that is really only on the map because of the movie. Regardless of the bees to honey mentality of the people there it was quite pleasant. We went on a beautiful sunny day, got to stroll around a perfect looking Shire and even had a few free drinks at the Green Dragon Pub. It was pretty cool to see the set still completely dressed and really feel like we were in the movie. Plus so many Sheeps!!! This was my first proper viewing of the famous NZ Sheeps. The set was built on a farm that had so many of the little guys Baaing around.
So now we come to the not so fantastic things...
Now let's keep this in perspective, they are not as great relative to some pretty awesome things that happened and yes, I am on vacation so even the parts that kinda suck are good compared to ten page papers or eight hour work days.
The issue is that traveling with family can simultaneously be super special and exceedingly exhausting. There were definitely times when I experienced the latter. Like driving for example. We rented a car for our trip, so my mother and I could switch off driving (on the left side). I picked it up quite quickly and she did too but also struggled a bit more than I did. This is not the frustrating thing, the frustrating thing was directions. I consider myself to be really good with directions (modest, I know) and by that I mean I actually know how to properly read a map. The trouble is when I am driving, which I often was, I cannot also read a map so I rely on someone to navigate for me. Only I seem to be the only one who can do that correctly and thus the frustration. Anyways, to make this all short and sweet, having to pull off every ten min to check the map for myself while the rents are arguing about the correct direction can really take it out of you.
There were a few moments (and by a few I mean too many) similar to this that soiled some of our activities but I won't get into that too much.
The next place I wanna talk to you about was a town called Tairua. We stayed there first after leaving Aukland and also right before Rotarua. This town is on the north-east coast in the Coromandel. It is home to Cathedral Cove (the entrance to Narnia) and the hot-water beach.
This beach would make an awesome anthropological study. People mob the it at low tide, dig out the sand near some hot water springs that are on the beach, and sit in their little wholes till the tide comes in. The issue is if you get there late (like we did) most of the good areas are taken, so you must either wait until someone vacates their nest, steal an already dug whole, jump in with someone else or try and make a stream from another tub to your own. (If you're curious, we ended up stealing someone's vacated nest).
This part was pretty cool and the baby goat at our hostel was adorable but overall I was not wild about our stay in Tairua also since I was sick the whole time and my birthday there was kinda awful it did not help their case. But again trying to keep some perspective.
Now we have come to the last place and also my least favorite since there was not really anything to do besides a few nature walks which were enjoyable but nothing to write home about. This place was Taupo, which is right on a lake, land locked in the center of the island. It is across the lake from Mt. Doom (lord of the rings movie site). We were also there on Christmas and Boxing Day (which is a big deal here) so it was dead the 25th and absolutely crazy the 26th. It was just all around my least favorite of our locations.
I know this was a long post (so thanks for barring with me) and I probably left a whole bunch of stuff out but I really did try and get all the highlights in here and it's really not easy to post when I can barely get internet.
Our next stop is Australia and I should be more frequent with these updates but anything could happen...
For now farewell land of silver ferns, all blacks, and kiwis, you were a blast and hopefully I shall visit again sometime soon!
The first being only a day or so ago before our return to the big city. We spent two nights in a town called Waitomo which is inland but near the north-west of the island. It is an area that is known for its caves and specifically it's glowworm caves. I must preface this little description with an announcement. 'I absolutely love caves and pretty much everything about them!' They are beautiful and eery and spiritual and just dang cool!
So here we are on our last official stop in NZ amongst a giant network of caves. Let's just say pretty much everything we did rocked my socks. Even the simple tour where we just walked through an extremely groomed cave made me happy beyond measure. At one point I was able to find my own little cave that I crawled into and got quite dirty in the process. We floated through a cave on a boat and looked up at thousands of glowworms that made the ceiling look like the night sky. This would have been better had there not been a screaming baby on our boat (just our luck). But by far the best part and the highlight of my trip so far was black water rafting. It was essentially a three hour excursion through a semi-wild cave with floaty-tubes. We jumped off waterfalls and floated in the dark and scrambled over rocks, through crevices. I felt like such a badass explorer and I loved it!!
Moral of the story, caves are brilliant and I probably shoulda been a geologist since geology rocks! (Bazinga!)
The next best part of the tour of NZ's north island had to be this town called Rotarua which is a geo-thermal hot-spot (jeez, with all the puns in this post). It was pretty much a Pagosa Springs (for those of you who know what that is) on steroids. You couldn't throw a stone without it landing on a geyser or in a hot springs. We spent a good three days soaking in every different kind of hot water there was. We did a proper manicured spa type and a wilderness warm/cold river mixed pool.
On top of the ever present hot water and steam that made me feel like we were fresh from a land before times movie, they had an epic museum. Speaking of, one thing I have decided about NZ in general is that they freaking know how to set up a museum. Every one that I have been to here is just great! Let me tell you, I know my way around all different types of museums but they are seriously special here. They make a point to really have an interactive experience that shows their topic on all levels from a bunch of perspectives.
The next place, (but remember I am doing these by enjoyment and not by a timeline) was our visit to the Shire. This one came on the way from Tairua, which I will tell you about, to Rotarua. We did not actually spend the night here but I think it must count.
The Hobbiton movie set is a huge tourist trap in a town called Matamata that is really only on the map because of the movie. Regardless of the bees to honey mentality of the people there it was quite pleasant. We went on a beautiful sunny day, got to stroll around a perfect looking Shire and even had a few free drinks at the Green Dragon Pub. It was pretty cool to see the set still completely dressed and really feel like we were in the movie. Plus so many Sheeps!!! This was my first proper viewing of the famous NZ Sheeps. The set was built on a farm that had so many of the little guys Baaing around.
So now we come to the not so fantastic things...
Now let's keep this in perspective, they are not as great relative to some pretty awesome things that happened and yes, I am on vacation so even the parts that kinda suck are good compared to ten page papers or eight hour work days.
The issue is that traveling with family can simultaneously be super special and exceedingly exhausting. There were definitely times when I experienced the latter. Like driving for example. We rented a car for our trip, so my mother and I could switch off driving (on the left side). I picked it up quite quickly and she did too but also struggled a bit more than I did. This is not the frustrating thing, the frustrating thing was directions. I consider myself to be really good with directions (modest, I know) and by that I mean I actually know how to properly read a map. The trouble is when I am driving, which I often was, I cannot also read a map so I rely on someone to navigate for me. Only I seem to be the only one who can do that correctly and thus the frustration. Anyways, to make this all short and sweet, having to pull off every ten min to check the map for myself while the rents are arguing about the correct direction can really take it out of you.
There were a few moments (and by a few I mean too many) similar to this that soiled some of our activities but I won't get into that too much.
The next place I wanna talk to you about was a town called Tairua. We stayed there first after leaving Aukland and also right before Rotarua. This town is on the north-east coast in the Coromandel. It is home to Cathedral Cove (the entrance to Narnia) and the hot-water beach.
This beach would make an awesome anthropological study. People mob the it at low tide, dig out the sand near some hot water springs that are on the beach, and sit in their little wholes till the tide comes in. The issue is if you get there late (like we did) most of the good areas are taken, so you must either wait until someone vacates their nest, steal an already dug whole, jump in with someone else or try and make a stream from another tub to your own. (If you're curious, we ended up stealing someone's vacated nest).
This part was pretty cool and the baby goat at our hostel was adorable but overall I was not wild about our stay in Tairua also since I was sick the whole time and my birthday there was kinda awful it did not help their case. But again trying to keep some perspective.
Now we have come to the last place and also my least favorite since there was not really anything to do besides a few nature walks which were enjoyable but nothing to write home about. This place was Taupo, which is right on a lake, land locked in the center of the island. It is across the lake from Mt. Doom (lord of the rings movie site). We were also there on Christmas and Boxing Day (which is a big deal here) so it was dead the 25th and absolutely crazy the 26th. It was just all around my least favorite of our locations.
I know this was a long post (so thanks for barring with me) and I probably left a whole bunch of stuff out but I really did try and get all the highlights in here and it's really not easy to post when I can barely get internet.
Our next stop is Australia and I should be more frequent with these updates but anything could happen...
For now farewell land of silver ferns, all blacks, and kiwis, you were a blast and hopefully I shall visit again sometime soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment