Great Eastern Journey, Sat, 02 Mar 2013 | written by Simon
Simon at a Cave in Australia & Oceania, New Zealand

OK, so everything today was awesome. New Zealand is beautiful!!!

First, the caves. Waitomo is the largest cave complex in NZ, and even though only is small part is available to the public, it’s still huge. I went to all three caves, and each one was better than the previous one. The long tunnels of Roakuri, the huge halls of Aranui, and the glowworms of the Glowworm Cave… And the bush walk around the caves, with several smaller but still spectacular caves and tunnels. There are no words to describe it, but I have lots of pictures and I’ll try to upload them as soon as I’ll get hold of a computer (which won’t be for the next few days, unfortunately). But the next time I’m coming here I won’t just walk the caves – there are several more interesting options: black water rafting (going down an underground river), a climbing track that leads through the higher parts of the caves, more scrambling tracks. I so should have gone for one of those… Next time.

Lunch on a hill, the caves are undernath me
After the caves I took a scenic route towards Taupo. The windy road led through hills, fields with sheep and forests – I felt like I’m back in Scotland! Got a bit nostalgic, actually. The vegetation is different, but generally it looks exactly the same. Also, it’s so much greener here than it was in Australia! And there are proper non-see-through trees!

By the way, a couple assorted observations. It’s cooler than in Oz. People don’t have the net door everyone had in Oz, so I assume there is less annoying bugs. Similarly as in Australia, everyone has separate toilet and bathroom and all shower heads are attached to the wall. There are symbols and pictures of kiwis everywhere – even bus ventilation holes are shaped like kiwis!