On to Rotorua

Our group left Auckland with Steve, our driver, getting us out of the morning business traffic fairly quickly. Headed south for about 1.5 hours to Hamilton where we went to visit Hamilton Gardens. Although not high on the official tourist lists of things to do, it certainly should be. And it is free - what's not to like about that? It has a large number of demonstration gardens over quite an extensive area. They illustrate ornamental gardens as developed at different periods and by different cultures: an English Flower Garden, Chinese Scholar Garden, Japanese Meditation Garden, Indian Char Bagh Garden, Italian Renaissance Garden. We also saw a Tudor box-hedge one, and a typical Maori kitchen garden.  We saw only a small part of the whole project in an hour and a half visit. It was an excellent walk around.  

After we left the gardens we drove on a bit before stopping for lunch in a small town then heading to see the glo-worm caves at Waitomo. No photos allowed until the very end but I didn't want to miss anything with my eyes.  A fun highlight was to sing The Happy Wanderer deep inside the cave in a space named the Cathedral.  Our leader had asked our group if that was possible and it turned out Robert is a member of a choir in England so he suggested the song and I think we did a fine job.  Sounded very cool anyway.

We went through the caves with a guide so we heard much about the history of the caves and about the actual glo-worms.  The walking part of the trip is through the caves that have very low subtle lighting so you can't see the glo-worms but you can see where you are going.  Near the end of the walk the guide takes the group down to a spot where you duck down and look under an overhang and it's unbelievable!  Each little worm casts a greenish light, and there are thousands all over the ceiling of the cave.  We could even see the hair like strings hanging from each worm that they use to catch their dinner.  Each worm has about 40 strings of different lengths. They glow to attract other insects and even the adult fly which then stick to the threads and the glow worm can wiggle down to eat their dinner.  At the end of the walk we all climb into a boat and the guide pulls us along on overhead wires.  It's a silent boat ride, no talking.  It was quite magical with the millions of glow worms glittering the rocks above our heads like the the night sky and stars.  We could see no other lights.  We all decided it takes a special person to be able to pull the boat through the caves in the dark while standing on the bow in absolutely the silence.  

Judy getting out of the boat at the end of our tour with the guide dressed in black with her back to my camera.

Our day continued on to the town of Rotorua where we would spend the next two nights.  Rotorua is built inside the crater of the volcano.  For many many years it has been a major tourist attraction for the geysers, boiling mud pools as well as the healing proprieties of the hot water under the surface.  Tomorrow we will explore.

Apologies to all Aussies reading this blog.  Pavlova is an Australian dessert that is served in New Zealand, not the othe way around.

Cheers!