Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga 27th - 30th October We decided to spend our remaining days up in the 'winter-less north' at the Bay of Islands, however as per usual we brought some bad weather up with us - more rain!  We did have nice weather for our day trip up to Cape Reinga, the very tip of New Zealand - a Maori spiritual site, where the Tasman and Pacific seas meet.  We had a crazy driver, Auto - just imagine the bus driver, Otto from The ...

Auckland 26th + 31st October We spent minimal time in Auckland, as we'd not heard one good thing about the place along our travels through Aotoroa (the land of the long white cloud, aka New Zealand), but it did turn out to be useful for communications, Internet and phones!  Along the way we managed to squeeze a free tour of the city, taking us out of the city centre to some pretty cool spots like Mt. Eden, one of 40+ volcanic cones littering the city sky...

Waitomo caves 25th October We did a day trip from Rotorua out to the glowworm caves in Waitomo, where we hopped into some rubber rings for some black water rafting.  Where we floated ourselves down the network of caves, jumping off the odd waterfall along the way.  Not quite as hard core as white water rafting, but still good fun and it gave us unprecedented views of the starry sky produced by the thousands of glowworms. 

Rotorua 24th October It was a short trip to 'Rotten-rua', nicknamed for its stinky sulphur aroma, so we had a full day of thermal and Maori activity. We visited Te Puia thermal park where learnt about Maori culture, saw some bubbling mud pools and even got to see a Kiwi bird finally! In the afternoon we relaxed in the outdoor Polynesian spa pools overlooking Lake Rotorua. That evening we went to a Maori village, Temaki, for a realistic traditi...

Taupo 23rd October The bad weather continued today, so unfortunately we couldn't do the Tongariro Crossing rated as one of the world's best 1 day hikes (passing between Mt. Doom and Mt. Mordor, the scenes from Lord of the Rings). Oh well, it's a good reason to come back here again one day! Instead we braved the rain and went to a thermally active site called 'Craters of the Moon' with its steaming micro volcanoes and to the raging Hu...