Let the Driving Begin!

Friday, July 20

Friday morning started early - we were up and out the door by 7:15 and headed to the Hertz rental car agency a few blocks away from the hotel. We got there a little before it opened, but waited only a few minutes before the doors open and we were able to pick up our car. A wise move by Stephen was to accept the offer of a GPS - keeping in mind my (not-so) awesome map-reading skills. 

By 7:45 we were on the road in our bright red car with a license plate that brought back memories of a heinous song we learned at the Cairns night zoo with the chorus starting "G'day G'day". We cringed every time we saw the plates.

Our first drive of the day was the 3- hour journey to the Waitomo caves, famous for their glow worms. Here are the first pictures of the drive.

We very quickly hit fog.

Here is Stephen driving on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car. He did great!

Here is me, being a great co-pilot. Good news, I remembered to turn the volume up on the GPS so Stephen always knew where to go.

We got out of the city pretty quickly, and for most of our drive, we were in very bucolic areas - and I tried to capture some of the beauty once I finally woke up.

We could not get over just how green everything was.

It was also very unlike farmland we had seen before - rather than just flat acres of crops, there were rolling hills, giant mountains, and streams cutting their way through the land.

We also saw lots and lots of cows. Not many sheep on this first drive, but Stephen assured me there would be many to come. 

Again, more greenery, more rolling hills, more incredible farmland.

Finally, by 10:30, we had made it to the street that took us to the caves (after getting a breakfast of champions in town at McDonald's and Subway - one for each of us). We then spent the next half hour trying to find the information site my New Zealand book recommended but with the wrong address. Finally, we gave up and pulled into the first company parking lot we could find so we could book some kind of adventure to see the caves. The first activities suggested included a 7 hour tour or a 5 hour inner tube ride through the caves - but you couldn't take any pictures and you had to sit in cold water for 3 hours. We decided neither of these sounded particularly appealing and still had plans to make it to Rotorua later in the day.

Fortunately, the woman behind the counter was able to find some basic one hour tours that did not require us to get wet in any capacity, and we booked those instantly. We first headed to our 45-minute glow worm cave tour, where we couldn't take any pictures. But do not fret! We have pictures...

of the tourist center for the caves!

of the glow worms!

Notice, we are not in that picture - we took that picture of a poster. But the worms did glow that brightly. However, the caves had recently flooded so there were not as many glow worms as seen in the picture above, but there were still plenty for us to consider the tour worthwhile.

After walking through the caves, we then got to take a short boat ride down a river through the caves in complete darkness, with the only lights coming from the glow worms. It was dead silent, and the only way the boat moved was by the guide pulling the boat on a series of overhead ropes that none of us could see. The picture below is looking back into the cave we just exited and the boat drifting back in.

After this tour, we then headed to the second set of caves we were going to tour - the Aranui caves, which this time, allowed us to take as many pictures as we wanted. At one point the caves had been underwater, so they were made completely of limestone and were over 30m high in some places.  Here are some of the photos that turned out okay:

This is called a roman candle stalagmite - when you hold a flashlight up to it, it looks like a candle.

Here are some stalagtites:

They were incredibly white, and we were not allowed to touch them because the oils in our skin would cause them to become discolored.

Here we are front of some stalagtites:

Upon finishing this second tour, we headed back to the car and by 2pm, we were on the road once again, this time driving to Rotorua (about 2 hours northeast of Waitomo). This time, I stayed awake the whole ride and took lots of photos.

According to Stephen, who has seen the Lord of the Rings movies, this looks exactly like the Shire where the hobbits live. He's determined to make me see the movies at some point. Yay.

Here are the idiot-proof labels we passed from time to time on our journey. Good news, we never needed them.

Here is more incredibly greenery and rolling hills.

By 4pm, we were in Rotorua and on our way to the Polynesian spa - a 15-pool spa filled completely with water from underground thermal hot springs of varying temperatures. After a long day of driving, it was exactly what we were looking for. A notable feature of Rotorua is the smell of the town - because of all the thermal vents, there's a somewhat overwhelming sulfuric smell in the air - but besides that, the town was fine. Here are some hot spring pictures:

As you can see - the pools went right up to the edge of Lake Rotorua, so we had something to look at while relaxing and enjoying the healing properties of the water.

We stayed for many hours, and eventually, night rolled around but we were not yet water-logged. It was absolutely lovely - Stephen is convinced I actually fell asleep in the water at one point - I maintain I was just incredibly relaxed with my eyes closed. I deny the snoring.

Finally, we pried our bodies from the warm water and headed into town to find the hostel we were staying in. It didn't take long, so we opted to drive around downtown to get a sense of the area and scout the local restaurants. We returned to the hostel with the realization Rotorua did not have a hopping nightlife, checked in, dropped our bags in our room, and walked the two blocks to the Mongolian Barbecue we had passed earlier.

Dinner was really good - lots of great stir-fries and pretty good drinks. Two hours later we returned to the hostel, sent some mandatory emails, and crawled into bed. It would appear all that relaxing tired us out. Tomorrow includes more driving and more adventures - so excited to see how it turns out (and maybe even see some sheep!)