Monday 1st February 2010

As predicted, the weather was awful this morning. It rained heavily overnight and although I really wanted to go to Rotorua before we left NZ, we decided not to bother. All the north island was forecast poor weather but Rotorua was probably the worst of the lot with more heavy rain and thunderstorms predicted. Instead, we decided to head out west where it would be a little brighter. Kenny and Helen came along with their daughter, Laura and Kath and I joined them in their car. Darren, Maxine, Harry, Brenda and Vernon all travelled in Maxine's car. Glad I didn't have to drive to be honest as both Kath and I had a poor nights sleep last night for some reason. It was very hot and sticky and Kath got up during the night to put the fan on, but neither of us had a good nights sleep.

We drove through the city of Hamilton though there was nothing to enthuse about... pretty ordinary from what we saw of it. Kenny said it was the worst city in NZ and he is probably right. We continued south and arrived at the Waitomo Caves where we stopped for a visit. The cost of some of the tours through the caves were quite expensive and those of us who chose to go, Kath and Helen decided not to, opted for the cheaper tour costing $39 and lasting 45 minutes. We were taken into the limestone caves and given the history by a well informed Maori tour guide who explained that in the cathedral section (all caves have one don't they?) they had held concerts featuring Kiri Te Kanawa and Sting in the past. They also hold a Christmas Carol Service every year for 290 people. I would imagine that the acoustics would be pretty impressive in such a setting. As we ventured further into the caves, we were shown what we had gone to see, glow worms. At first we were shown a few in the roof of the cave and given an explanation about their lives and how and why they glow and how they attract other insects into their sticky lines that hang down from the ceiling. Quite fascinating but then we went on a boat ride through the river that runs through the caves and the ceiling was covered in hundreds of thousands of glowing tiny lights. I've never seen a glow worm since Vicki had one when she was about three years old but we had to put batteries in that to make it glow, not quite the same.

We all had lunch at a nearby restaurant and then drove through the scenic Otorohanga area where we stopped off again at the Otorohanga Kiwi House and Native Bird Park. We couldn't come all this way to NZ and not see a Kiwi could we? We were not disappointed as we saw two strutting about in the leaves and dead branches of their reserve. They are a lot bigger than I thought but when you see the size of egg that they lay, which is not much smaller than the bird itself, it brings tears to the eyes when you think how they go about laying it ! We saw many other species of bird, native to NZ but the one that took my fancy was a fairly common duck. For some reason it took to me even though I didn't have food for it. It flew up onto a fence at the side of me and allowed me to stroke it. I then put my arm underneath its feet and it climbed onto me, looking at me from about 20cms from my face. I put it back onto the fence and it flew down into a pond but when we walked off, it climbed back out of the water and followed us along the path. I picked it up again and had my photo taken by Darren before passing it to a German lady. It flew off her and followed us again and when I left the enclosure, it came up to the fence and made crying noises. Most peculiar. I christened it Crispy which I thought was a good name for a duck or should it have been Peking Duck.

From the Kiwi House we travelled by the Pirongia Forest to a small town called Raglan situated on the west coast. There were many surfers in the sea but although some of the waves were reasonable, the surf wasn't really up for a spectacular display. We called into a local watering hole for drinks before setting off back to Auckland.

Our car was tasked with providing supper/dinner and a visit to Hell's Pizza sorted that out. We all met up at Darren and Maxine's and tucked into the food before Kenny and Helen departed at around 11pm. Work tomorrow for them after an extended Public Holiday Weekend which brought about the same weather as we normally get on Bank Holidays in the UK.

Last full day tomorrow, where has the time gone? I have emailed Cheryl Ryan in Manly, Australia, who we are staying with from Wednesday who says that they have special weather for us. I have just looked at the 7 day forecast and it is for showers, more showers and rain. This is supposed to be their summer. The weather really is most disppointing.

As usual, when you visit somewhere intertesting you are not allowed to take photo's. This was the case at the glow worm caves and Kiwi House so I have had to steal a photo of the cave and the glow worms from the internet.