Waitomo and Rotorua

Waitomo, as all the guides and guidebooks tell you, comes from the Maori words Wai (water) and Tomo (Cave or hole in the ground) and there are hundreds of rivers and caves and rivers both surface and underground in this area. It is famous as the main place to see glow worms; the dark, wet conditions are perfect for them, so these caves are full of them. These are insects that light up in the dark caves to attract flies and moths, which it traps and eats. What you see, as your boat takes you gently downriver in the dark of the cave, is a wonderful ceiling full of countless glowing lights, some brighter (hungrier ones) while others are more dim. It feels magical and secret, as it is pretty impossible to photograph.

These caves have transformed this sleepy little village into not just a first-class tourist attraction, but also, in typical NZ style, into an extreme-activities mecca. This is the place for abseiling, rock climbing, rafting. I had already done the other two elsewhere, but I wanted to try the so-called black-water rafting. Dorka was super and took the kids to play while I had an afternoon of that. The raft is actually more like a child’s rubber swimming-ring – it’s the inflated inner tube of a tractor tyre, which you carry down into the cave, then sit in with your bum hanging down while you hope for no sharp rocks beneath you. The water is mostly deep and cold, but dressed in a full-length wetsuit, you can last the hour underground without getting too chilly. There is just as much time climbing over rocks than floating, but it was all great fun. I also saw millions of glow worms here.

Another thing we saw in the dark here, was a kiwi, the flightless bird that really is a symbol for the whole country. They are about the size of a goose, but with no neck and a really long beak. They only come out at night through, so we couldn’t take any photos.

The next day, we all went to the nearby Aranui Limestone Caves, which was a lovely little trip. There were only 8 of us on the tour, so we were able to take our time and really enjoy the millions of tiny stalactites and towering stalagmites and narrow columns where the two had connected. The guide took lots of extra time to show us cave crickets and other special sights, and because there were no life-cycles to affect here, we could finally take photographs.

We left the caves behind and travelled to Rotorua. We had read that this is really the place for the true Maori experience, but we didn’t really find that ourselves. It was nice enough; we managed to get a cabin in a holiday park, and Emma made friends with a girl her own age - sadly this didn’t happen too often on the trip, so spending time in Rotorua with Sunny, a little girl on holiday from Australia, was one of the highlights of the trip for her.

We made an excursion to nearby Te Wairoa, a village half buried in volcanic mud in a huge eruption in 1886. It’s worth knowing that Rotorua is right in the heart of a massive strip of volcanic activity.
Two things were fascinating about the buried village: one is that tourism was already the norm in the 1880’s, but the thing that people came here to see then is gone. It was the great pink and white sinter terraces, a series of volcanic terraces, like rows of bathtubs arranged one after the other reaching from a river of boiling water down to a lake. The lower ones were great for bathing apparently, and the whole thing was incredibly beautiful. But now it’s at the bottom of the lake.

The other odd thing was a perfectly straight row of huge trees in the middle of the village. This was, they say, a fence made of cut branches (aspen or poplar I think) that were half buried in rich volcanic mud, and about half of them sprouted and grew up as trees.

It sounds pretty unlikely, but some plants can grow this way, so maybe it’s true.

We ckecked out the waterfalls nearby before heading back to Rotorua. En route we lounged by Blue Lake in the afternoon, then headed home to be ready for our Maori evening.

This took place at a local Maori village called Te Puia. I’m not sure if people actually live in this village all year or it’s merely a tourist trap, but it certainly was smoothly set up.
After our Maori guide welcomed us to the village, he took us across to see the formal challenge issued to our tour-group’s designated chief for the night, a German chap named Thomas. There followed about an hour of songs, with plenty of opportunities for us to go up on stage and look foolish. The highlight was of course the fierce Haka warrior challenge, now made so famous by the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team. After all the dancing came a hangi feast. This was supposedly meat and veg cooked in an underground oven heated by stones, but it seemed like any other banquet food really. There were large amounts of everything and we had hardly eaten that day, so we ate like crazy. After this was a short trip to the thermal pools and geysers on the other side of the village, then hot chocolate and back to the car park. This was all OK and as I said, very smoothly carried out, but somehow it all seemed a bit wooden and mass-produced.

The following morning we had a deadline to meet. I had read that at the volcanic park Wai O Tapu, the Lady Knox Geyser erupts at exactly 10:15 every day. That seemed worth checking out, so there we were (arriving at about 10:13) to see the ranger add some carbolic soap to a smoky hole in the ground. This is how the geyser was discovered apparently, some field working convicts were washing their clothes in a hot pool and the soap caused a chemical reaction, which led to an eruption. It must have scared them half to death, because the eruption we saw reached about 15m high and looked pretty fierce. After a few minutes of gushing water though, the novelty wears off, so we carried on to see the rest of the volcanic park, which was great. Dorka loved the multicoloured champagne pools and Emma enjoyed collecting pretty rocks.
On the road to Lake Taupo, we stopped off at a thermal pool complex so we could all enjoy ourselves in the water. By the time we finally got to the Lake, it was getting late. Thankfully we had a reservation, so we knew that despite the peak season, we had a nice place assured for our Christmas break.

Click on the cave photo below for the whole album!

Waitomo & Rotorua

Bay of Islands, December 15-20

We had been looking forward to this part of our trip since the very beginning. Many people had told us how great it was, so we had some high expectations. We stayed in one of the many hostels, or as they say here, to assault my basic grammar, “a backpackers”, in the middle of the town of Paihia. The Pepper Tree backpackers had a massive, well equipped and always-busy kitchen and two lounges, one of which was next to our room. This gave Emma and Lara somewhere to play, and it was also a nice place for to work on the blog and have adult talks instead of just going to bed at 9pm. The hostel’s other big attraction was free use of their bikes and sea kayaks. Sea kayaking was another of our unrealistic dreams of New Zealand- paddling happily between icebergs and groups of whales, each with a child on our lap perhaps? Of course, in reality Dorka and I ended up kayaking separately, while the other one babysat, but it was still nice to get out and about, and paddling between the many islands was lots of fun.

Since before this trip, we had been looking forward to Emma swimming with Dolphins, but it turned out to be prohibited for little ones, so instead we took a tour boat to just look at them. This was great. We got right up next to a pod of dolphins three times, and were able to look right down at them from a few metres away. These were bottlenose dolphins, about 2m long and very beautiful. They were also completely wild. The captain was quite an expert, and explained that they were never fed by people, the boats could only approach if the dolphins were not feeding, and that no more than 3 boats at a time could “park” next to them. It was all very regulated. Of course they could swim away at any time, so all the time they were with us, they were probably as curious about us, as we were about them. The trip also included the famous “hole in the rock”, an island with a massive hole right though the middle of it. But the journey there was so bumpy that everyone had trouble concentrating on this marvelous sight.

On a wet and windy Thursday we walked over to the Waitangi treaty grounds. These were pretty well presented, but still not too much fun. There was quite a good Maori singing show though. We forgot to tell Emma what to expect so she was a bit alarmed by all the men shouting the Haka challenge. In case you’ve never seen it, this is warrior challenge where the Maori scream scary words and make strange faces to scare off their enemies. Emma could do quite a good impression of this, complete with wide, rolling eyes and a poked-out tounge. You can see a lot of tounges and wild faces in the carvings too, which were all over the Maori Wakas (war canoes) and the maraes (meeting houses).

On our final morning in Paihia, we decided to have a go at Parasailing, where brave souls dangle from a parachute, attached by a strong cable to a motor boat, which pulls you along. We kept Lara down in the boat of course, but Emma and Dorka went up with the parachute to a height of 900ft or nearly 300 metres. That is extremely high. Emma had a wonderful time, though Dorka was so worried about Emma that she could hardly enjoy it. I also went up, and let me tell you, the view is great! It does feel awfully exposed at first, with absolutely nothing beneath your feet, but you soon get the hang of it!

Now we turned and began our long route south. This would eventually take us onto the South Island and down across it until almost the southern tip of the country. On our first day though we went a little too far perhaps. We took a little detour to view some Kauri trees, which are hard to find south of this region. These are famous for their size and age. Though not as large as a giant redwood, they are still massive trees. The ones we saw were only 300 years old, but they were easily 3 metres in diameter and I would guess 50 metres tall, though actually we couldn’t see the tops clearly in the dense jungle. They towered straight up for about 30 metres before the first branches, which is what made them so popular for ships beams and masts when the first Europeans came. Unfortunately, this led to a huge logging industry that almost drove these magnificent trees to extinction.

Back on the road, we pushed on all the way to the Goat Ísland Marine Reserve. This is an island just a few metres off shore famous for the sea life around it. (Interestingly, the name come from the fact that goats were released onto the island to breed and multiply, to make a source of food for sailors who might be shipwrecked there. How’s that for forward thinking?) The snorkelling itself was unfortunately not very good. There was so much plankton in the water, that it was like swimming in swirling soup. Sometimes there were clear bits and I found myself surrounded by multicoloured fish, but most of the time it was just (fish) soup. Dorka and the girls stayed dry and warm on a glass-bottom boat, which is (as the name suggests) a small boat with a glass bottom for those, who want to see the beautiful marine life without getting wet, but saw even less than I did! But Lara still had a great time climbing and crawling around the boat.

Even though the snorkeling wasn’t very good, we had a very special experience at the Goat Island: Emma was so fascinated by the traditional tattoos of a Maori man, who was just diving there, that she asked Dorka to get talking to him. They had a lovely chat, and at the end they said goodbye in the traditional Maori way: by touching their noses together. This ritual is called sharing the breath of life.

Auckland, New Zealand Dec 11th-14th

Well, we were sad to say goodbye to Australia, but excited to say hello to New Zealand!
We knew that we’d be returning to Auckland again to fly home, so we only spent a few days here now, and most of that was devoted to admin work, such as rearranging flights and also trying to buy a car for the large amounts of driving we expected to do in NZ. We had a bit of a scare when a car we had agreed to buy, turned out to be not what it seemed. We checked with the registration, and found that it didn’t belong to the guy selling it, which means he was probably a dodgy car dealer/stealer. Anyway we decided to avoid it (even though it looked lovely, and was cheap) and go for a long term car-rental instead.

The other highlight of Auckland was my birthday (Andrew’s), and the 40th too! We had loosely planned to celebrate this with a bungee jump, and here we had the perfect opportunity. There is a massive tower in this city which boasts the ultimate jumping experience. I did it and they’re right, it is amazing.


This top heavy tower stands way above the rest of the city’s skyscrapers, and has a jumping platform some 192 m above the hard concrete. (For purists, it’s not technically a bungee jump at all, because you are attached to a vertical wire, to stop you blowing back into the tower or off into somebody’s office, and this wire also slows you down as you approach the ground.) But for me the difference is somehow not-so-important if you still need to step off a perfectly good building at a height where cars and boats look like toys. Perhaps the best moment of the trip so far was arriving on terra firma in a slightly wobbly state, to be hugged by my proud daughter.

Soon we were back on the road again, this time heading North to the Bay of islands, before our big southern adventure. Just an hour North of Auckland, we passed an unexpected treat – the Hundertwasser toilets in a tiny little town called Kewarawa. We love the freakish architecture of Friedrich Hundertwasser in Austria, and it turns out that he lived out his final years in this quiet corner of New Zealand, and found time to create some amazing roof gardens, and probably the most eclectic WC in the world. Apparently he was such a fan of this country, he even designed a new flag for New Zealand, which would represent the Maori culture more then the old commonwealth imagery of the present flag. It was never accepted, but here it is in all it’s glory.

Side note: If you ever want to capture a photograph of a constantly- moving flag, be prepared that it will involve at least 100 attempts, 10 minutes, 8 megapixels, and several impatient family members.

Melbourne December 4-11

Melbourne was a bit weird for us. Well to be more polite, our visit to Melbourne was a little strange. All travel is very subjective, but what we most remember of this city is just hanging out, relaxing and searching for new places to eat out, of which there are countless great examples. I think we were just tired out from all the fast-paced sightseeing and driving in Tasmania and all the places before.

We did manage to visit a few places during our time here, but they were all rather unsatisfying. The Immigration Museum included a guided tour, but the guide focused mostly on the architecture of the building itself, which she obviously found fascinating. There was one nice story to illustrate the power held by the immigration officers. Until about the 1930’s, they could use tricks such as the grammar test, in any European language to mark people as unsuitable for immigration. The story goes that a political activist was very much unwanted, so the immigration officers tested him in 6 different European languages, all of which he spoke, until they finally tried Gaelic, which he did not, so they were able to refuse his application on the grounds of insufficient language skills.

In poor weather, we took a free tour bus, but it was very popular, and completely packed, so that we had to sit separately. We walked to the end of St Kilda on a blustery day to see the kite surfers, but though it was beautiful, we couldn’t stay long because it was too chilly.

There was also quite a lot of what you might call family time. Andrew took Emma to see an excellent evening outdoor ballet performance of the Nutcracker Suite. We viewed the botanical gardens, and during a feeding session there, Andrew dropped some baby food in such a spectacularly clumsy way that it covered everybody in a 5m blast radius. We explored the fantastic war memorial, where Emma became lost for a few minutes, and had a minor scare. We crawled all over an art museum, where we nearly bought some aboriginal artwork. Emma later started to spontaneously produce aborigine-style dotted pictures, which were very good. All of these were important to us, but probably don’t deserve more than a short mention here.

Melbourne Museum was a nice surprise. It had an indigenous people section, including some moving stories about the disastrous government programs in the mid-20th century to “civilize” the aborigines, basically by removing their children and raising them in white foster homes. This sounds insane to us now, and it scarred many families, but it’s interesting to note that they took responsibility for it. This is what the Australian prime minister was talking about, when he made his public apology a few years ago, for previous government treatment of the aborigines. Like most other uninformed foreigners, I had always assumed that it was about forcing them off their traditional land. The museum had an excellent kiddies section, so Emma enjoyed playing at excavating dinosaur bones and measuring her height in terms of giraffes (0.25 giraffes) and wombats (4 - stacked up, of course)

We did come across some evidence of the massive Hungarian population, located here and in Sydney, when we visited a second generation Hungarian café. It was nice to relax with some familiar food, while Emma entertained the other customers.

So that was the end of our Australian trip. We had enjoyed it greatly, but now it was time to move on to the other half of our adventure, New Zealand.