Lows to Highs - Caves and Pinnacles

Sorry for the delay in updating - we've been staying in some rural places that don't have internet access! Even where they do have internet access, you have to pay to get it. Also, thanks agian for the comments! I wish I could respond to each one individually, like on LJ, but Blogger doesn't seem to do that!

After visiting Hobbiton on Wednesday, we got back in the camper and drove to Waitomo. Here we experienced our first night of campsite living. Some things were not exactly how I expected - there is really no place to store our stuff, so we are constantly moving it around the camper, which takes away one of the great plusses I expected - only having to unpack once. Some of the restroom facilities have been awesome, others not so much, and one place the bathroom in the van was preferable to the campsite. Yuck! Here are a few pictures from the place we stayed the first night - the sun came out early in the morning to give us a brief respite from the rain.

This shows the campsite, then our view, and finally the lovely dumpsite, which is the yuckiest part of this whole thing that I just had to share!



Thursday morning was our first truly exciting activity: blackwater rafting through the glowworm caves of Waitomo. We were both really looking forward to this, and it was nice to have an activity planned where the rain couldn't bother us. We suited up in our ice cold wetsuits and posed for a picture before hopping into a van and going to a river to pick out our innertubes and practice jumping into the water. For your enjoyment, here we are in our suits!



Jumping into the water was a shock to the system for sure! It was freezing cold and the wetsuits did little to warm us. We each had to jump backwards into the water to make sure our tubes were stable for us, but they didn't tell us to expect the freezing water. After that, we got back into the bus and went to the caves. We climbed down a little bit and then it was time to get into the caves.



It was exciting and very scary. You couldn't help but think about what would happen to you if you got lost or separated from the group. Luckily we had two excellent tour guides who helped everyone through it. We saw lots of tiny little glowworms on the ceiling of the cave and jumped off several waterfalls. We walked through the stream and rode our innertubes in equal amounts. I lost my tube at one point and went completely under, which was not terribly fun. At the end of the trip, they gave us each a chocolate fish and told us we were going to play a fun little game called "get out of the cave in the dark". We all turned the lights on our helmets off and followed paddled to the exits of the cave by following the glowworms. This truly was frightening, and it was very difficult to not reach up and turn that light back on, but we made it out without extra light. It was really a fun thing to do - challenging and exciting and fairly unique.

After the glowworms, we went to the Otorohanga Kiwi House to see some real live Kiwis. Kiwis are a bird found only in New Zealand, but they are nocturnal and rarely seen. This house keeps a darkened room with kiwis in it so that visitors can see them. They are very interesting birds! In addition to the kiwis, they had a whole outdoor area with lots of other types of birds and even a giant aviary with a section of forest in it. We had a nice afternoon stroll through the preserve and learned a lot about NZ's native birds. I didn't get a picture of a live kiwi, so this one at the entrance to the place will have to do:



It was back to the car to drive to Tongariro Crossing. Tongariro Crossing is called "the best day hike" in New Zealand and goes through a national park with several active volcanoes. One of them was used for Mount Doom in LotR, but even beyond that is was supposed to be a gorgous walk. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. The rain and wind made it impossible to do the walk, so this was the first (and hopefully only!) major disappointment in the trip. Now we have two things to do when we come back someday - Rotorua (when we tell people we didn't go there, their jaws drop open - all I have to say is that Lonely Planet should have made it sound more like a must-see!) and Tongariro Crossing.

Instead of the Crossing, we decided to go straight for the Putangirua Pinnacles. Originally, we'd planned to do this as a side trip from Wellington if we had time, and now we had the time. The drive started out dreary and the drive often felt treacherous and wound around the sides of mountains and up and down hills, but it was also beautiful, as you can see in this picture.



Even better, as we got closer to the Pinnacles, the clouds lifted and it because a gorgeous day. After driving past thousands of sheep and cattle, we were greeted with this fantastic view of the bay.



We arrived at the Pinnacles at around 4:30 and got out to do the hour and a half walk. The ground was filled with rocks, as expected, and almost the first thing I did was fall flat on my face while attempting to hop over a log. Yes, I said I was going to hop over a log - stop laughing. In any case, I wasn't seriously hurt and only my knees (and my pride) were bruised. Here's the picture I killed myself for!



The Pinnacles didn't disappoint - they were stunning and strange. I am really interested in how they came to be like that. It seemed that water ran down the hills into the ocean and took the rocks with it, but it was such a unique formation it seems like there must be more to it. Here's a typical view of the area.



After the Pinnacles, we drove to the most scenic and least amenable place we'll stay this trip - the Lake Ferry Holiday Park. It was absolutely gorgeous, with a view over the bay, but it cost $1.00 to get five minutes of hot water to shower in, and the showers were filled with moths. We were only too happy to leave it behind this morning.

Bear with me - we're almost caught up!

This morning we got back in the car to drive along the sides of mountains again towards Wellington. We arrived around lunch time, and after taking care of some RV maintenance tasks, we caught a bus into Wellington. We wandered around for several hours, stopping to have lunch and visiting the Te Papa museum, which had several interesting exhibits on New Zealand art and culture, and a fascinating visiting exhibit on Egypt.

Now we're back in the camper and exhausted once again. Tomorrow Jennifer (Leggylass) is coming to pick us up and show us the sights.