Pt 14 - Ruakuri Cave and on to Taupo

Friday 26 February - Ruarkuri Cave and off to Taupo.
Today demands an early departure, but we are on the ball and arrive early waiting for a 9 am pick up from the info centre for a tour of the Ruakuri Cave. While we’re waiting we check out the museum for a bit, but I think I saw all the best stuff the other day.

We pile into the van and head out to the cave. We have just a small group in this first tour of the day. Only 9 people. We have come from all over the world. Denmark, Canada, California, and of course ourselves from Sydney. The entrance newly constructed is concrete but it is formed to imitate the natural pancaking of the local limestone. It is really very well done. The owner of the land now having the income from the reopening of the cave is letting the land surrounding the site return to bushland. As the bushland regenerates it is anticipated that the faux stone entrance way will become more camouflaged.

You enter the cave via a huge hole that has been drilled in the ground. A gently sloping spiral walkway runs round and round down 14 metres. The lights on the walkway create quite a beautiful effect. At the end of this descent you walk through another perfectly circular tunnel. It’s all very James Bond. Perhaps best of all, the whole cave is wheelchair accessible. What an achievement!!

There are some lovely crystal features in the cave. A striking feature of this cave, as in the Aranui cave are the very large stalactites that hang like elaborate chandeliers above the paths. They create an imposing and majestic sense of an underground palace. The natural cave decoration not overdone so each individual feature can be seen and appreciated for it’s own merit. There are some nice shawls along the walls as the passage narrows. Everywhere there is the tinkle of dripping water. Flowstone on the walls is wet and glistening. Water drips slowly from the tips of the stalacmites depositing the merest trace of calcium carbonate to grow in lustrous beauty ever downward.

There is quite a lot of cave coral. Tiny sharp clusters of crystal where the water has sat for long periods allowing the crystals to form in all directions. Even the stalactites and shawls have cave coral on them. We continue along the path through this hall of the mountain kings. Nature has painted highlights here and there with a layer of iron oxide juxtaposed against the snowy white of pure calcium carbonate.

As we move through away from the crystal caverns we enter large passageways where the pancaking of the limestone provides a striking and fascinating feature. I wrack my brain to try to remember what they said on the signs at the pancake rocks at punakaiki.. the pancake rocks are a mystery and they have no idea how they formed.. these ones at Waitomo are explained as progressive layers deposited over time. No mystery. In the end I conclude: punakaiki is igneous rock, these are sedimentary... sometimes I wished I pay more attention to geological information… which actually usually bores me to tears!



Areas where photos are not allowed are signaled by small blue lights along the path. These are areas where glow worms live or where the risk of dropped cameras to black water adventurers is simply too great to allow people to have cameras out and active.

As we come to an area where the glow worms can be seen in close proximity with their threads, we take it in turns to examine the grubs up close and move along to allow the others through, watching over the railing as the lights from the hardhats of the black water tubing folk flicker from the passageway the river has run though far below. We wait and watch to see them land in a shallow area, climb over an obstacle then position themselves in their inner tubes, gum boots hanging over the rim, to float on into the pitch black. I can’t decide whether that looks like fun or not!

We move along imagining we might see Gollum any time now, and arrive at some large fossil shells that were found during the redevelopment of the cave. We admire ancient rock falls and progressively hear tell of how the construction work for the new pathways was undertaken. We pass through a section with lights out quietly admiring the glow worms on the roof. There’s a pretty decent display. Not nearly a competitor for the dedicated glow worm caves, but nothing shabby none-the-less. It seems the Ruakuri cave is a back up for somewhere to take people should the glow worm cave need to close. Maybe due to another big flood or perhaps if carbon dioxide levels get too high or something.

Eventually we come to an area known as “the pretties” this is a chamber with plentiful crystal formations. Mostly stalactites and cave coral. Mostly white. It is most assuredly a pretty chamber. As we move along we come to the area where the old path used to go through towards the section that is wahi tapu. Sacred burial sites for the maori ancestors. We get a bit more detail on the story of the dispute over ownership of the cave. Each tour has given us a little bit more about that issue and while each piece of information has stood alone at the time, collectively they are fleshing out the issues and the solution arrived at. The dispute was active for over 40 years before local Maori won the argument. It all sounds oh so familiar with the goings on in Australia, though to an outsider it seems like New Zealand is a bit further along the road to a reasonable reconciliation with the indigenous people than we are at home.

From the pretties and the old path we loop back to the main route and commence the walk out of the cave. We pass two other groups coming in. Neither is large. The walk back to the surface is easy. Surprisingly easy up the giant spiral. It really is a very accessible cave. They have done an excellent job in redeveloping it. Big costs, time limit for recoup too. Along the way we did actually pass a wheelchair with a waterproof cover sitting in a corner of one of the larger spaces. Seems an odd place to store it.
Back on the surface we pile back in the van with thanks and compliments all round. Then it’s a short drive back to the i-site and our vehicle. We spend, or should I say waste a little time in the museum watching the multimedia show. It doesn’t tell us anything that we haven’t been told on pretty much every tour. Lifecycle of the glow worm, how caves are formed; the waitomo landscape and so on.

Hubby falls into the chocolate tourist trap and pays a ridiculous amount of money for some very poor quality kiwi fruit chocolates… ah, don’t you know you can get Whittackers kiwi fruit chocolate everywhere including at home? Anyway, time has come for us to say farewell to Waitomo and head to Taupo. We like caves. In fact I think the more I tour them the more I like them.

We do very little of interest on the drive to Taupo. The scenery is pretty similar to that coming down from the north. A bit greener perhaps. We pass through some pretty areas of native forest in small patches. Oh if only there was more native bush left. We wizz past the turn to Pureora. Dirt road. Hubby is anxious to get to Taupo anyway.

Taupo seems enormous and crowded after Waitomo. We sus out where we are staying but we are a bit early for check in which is not until 3:30. We spend some time wandering about to the north of town. A quick visit to Huka Falls Jet and the Prawn farm… hmm, doesn’t look too inviting as today we want something reasonably quick. We head back to the base for helicopter flights. They have a café – the Hub Café. It looks quiet but we decide that is more tempting than central Taupo and the crowds. As hubby finishes up our order I wander over to enquire about flights over the volcanoes. $650pp from here. It involves 90 mins flight time and an alpine landing.. hhmmm tempting, but I wonder if we can do one from closer that doesn’t take so long and cost so much. We would want to wander about down there on the ground anyway. We decide to look into other options.

Lunch is good. Hubby goes for yet another burger. This one has avocado and a patty that is clearly proper mince with various spices. They provide a bottle of tuimato sauce. Tomato sauce with tui beer in it. Hubby reports it was very nice- both the burger and the sauce! I opted for the oh so healthy French toast with bacon and fruit. This was very nice too. All in all a very satisfactory meal.

Lunch concluded we wander out towards Rapids Jet. Along the way we pass the lava glass studio. By now though we’re getting a bit over the lava glass. I think they have made a mistake marketing it absolutely everywhere. Every tiny gallery has some lava glass. It feels like it’s lost its exclusivity. For 500 bucks I want at least some sense of rarity, but hey I guess if they sell it’s all income isn’t it.

Having had a quick look we head on to Rapids Jet. No more trips in the jet boat today due to lack of numbers. How many people to do you need to go ahead? 4. “We could always eat some more” we joke. Laughs aside, they can take our number or we can book on one of several confirmed trips for tomorrow. We book and pay for 10 am. The river is a glorious colour: a rich, wonderfully clear blue. The huka series of lava glass does capture the hue of it very well. Looking downstream the river looks pretty. I’m really looking forward to the jetboat trip, but hubby is a bit nervous about motion sickness. He’s a sly one I joke. I might have to start pulling the motion sick lurk myself and get a guarantee of a seat on the outside edge for ease of depositing cargo overboard!

Now after 3 we take a look at Craters of the Moon. $6 entry for volunteers to watch your car. There’s toilet facilities and a small shop. Some people are coming out. One says to the others “everyone is very subdued”. A couple say nothing in reply the fourth says “just overwhelmed”. The tone suggests she meant the opposite, but the statement was made pretty dead pan so who knows. .. we figure we might be best advised to head on in to Taupo and check in to our accommodation and look over the itinerary for tomorrow and the next days, relax and take care of a few niceties like check the email, which we’ve neglected for a few days... oh dear, I've missed the deadline for futher submissions for the recipe book daughter 2 is having bound from contributions from friends and family for daughter 1's kitchen tea... she's chosen a few more for me from my recipe book.. phew.

An early night.. hubby is snoring by 8pm. I’m off to bed at 9:15. Journal completed for today. An easy one as not much in the way of photos!

Pt 13 Spellbound; Aranui Cave; Ruarkuri Walk; Glow worm cave; more delights of the Huhu Cafe

Thursday 25th February – Spellbound, lunch at Huhu Café; Aranui Cave; Ruakuri Walk; Glow worm cave and of course, Dinner at Huhu again.

What a difference a good nights sleep makes. Breakfast, which is included in our tariff here, runs from 8am and is located in a nice airy room with big plate glass windows overlooking pleasant rural views. The views included what appears from a distance could be a very large, very happy silky oak covered in fading flowers, but I think was actually a pine tree same as those around the gondola in Rotorua. The orangey stuff that looks like faded flowers is actually old leaves.



We are out and about comparatively early waltzing into the info centre bang on 9am. We’re trying to decide how many other caves to do beside Spellbound. We have a day and a half at least. We were thinking we might do some walks in Pureora Forest, but my road atlas seems to say the relevant roads we would need to travel are unsealed. In the end we decide to go the whole shebang. A trio combo plus we get half price entry to the caves museum because we are doing the Spellbound tour.

It’s pouring rain as time approaches to check in for the Spellbound tour, so we head over a bit early to get a good car spot. When the whole group has arrived we all pile in the Spellbound van and head out along the route towards Ruakuri Reserve and onwards on the gravel meandering along narrow roads through farmland. The caves that Spellbound use are on private land and the owner gets a percentage for every person that the tours take through.

As we approach the entry to the glow worm cave there is an opportunity to head overland for about 5 minutes or so and meet us down there, or we can stay in the van. It’s still pouring rain and the warning to take care on the cliff edges along the walk, encourage us to take the pikers way out and stay in the vehicle. The walk down to the cave entrance emerges alongside a pretty little stream.



We don our hard hats with cave lights on the front and head on into the cave. Our guide (Norm) kindly offers to take portraits of everyone and then we’re off. The access to the cave is very easy. No stairs. No steep inclines. The paths at the beginning section are natural earth, and while quite well graded you do need to walk carefully. As we enter the darkness, with illumination only from our hardhats the crystal around the cave looks like it has been dusted with silver glitter. Quite a different effect than I have seen in other caves.



It’s a very short way into the caves, just long enough to be well away from the light of the entry, that the boat is moored. Before heading for the boat we get a run down on the glow worms and get a good close up look at the worms and their webs within the cave. Plenty of opportunity to take photos, however Spellbound offer to send you good pictures via email if you supply your details or email them.

Time to head for the boats. We are warned that there is a waterfall, but rest assured we aren’t going over the waterfall. The boat is a large inflatable affair. We hop in quite easily, then it’s time again for some portrait taking of us in the boat then we begin our ride through the glow worm caverns. The cave is long and we spend quite a time drifting around and manoevering around to make sure everyone gets a good look at everything. The roar of the waterfall is quite dominant. The glow worms reflect in the water. It’s beautiful and it’s romantic. It is an awesome sight. The inflatable boat is good if a slight bump is made on the edge of the cave in the dark, but the seats are not very comfortable to sit on, being as they are, just the rounded top of an inflatable section.

After moving slowly back to the landing we then leave the boat with just the light of Norm’s little torch illuminating the step out of the boat – which is all we need now our eyes have adjusted to the dark. We then move out of the cave in a long conga line with only the light from the glow worms to show the way. It’s a great experience. The rest of the walk is completed with minimal light also – again all we need and it creates a great atmosphere.

Along the way we are advised that although some other tours say that the glow worms will turn off their lights if you make noise, so keep quiet, this is actually rubbish and just a polite way to tell tourists to shut up. It’s true that the worms don’t like light though, hence no photographs (and anyway, don’t bother because they don’t turn out anyway). The silence is important to get most out of the experience. Agreed!

Time for morning tea after an opportunity to admire the nifty treadle operated water pumps improvised on the sinks for hand washing. These pumps are seriously cool! Morning tea is a cuppa and a biscuit or two accompanied by some chatting. A couple of young women from the UK have chucked in their jobs to travel for a while. Norm asks whether they are going to Australia and some tips are given. He says go to Bondi and do the walk around the coast back to the city, and provides some details about his experience at that and we chat about various Sydney things. When the girls ask about beaches other than Bondi and Manly, we explain that the east coast of Australia, and NSW in particular, is pretty much just a string of sandy beaches broken up by headlands between. There’s the comment from Norm that I mentioned in an earlier post: "travelling around Australia you learn two things: you can get sick of the sight of gum trees and you can get sick of the sight of beautiful golden beaches.” Well yes, there are a lot of gum trees and a lot of beautiful beaches in the land of Aus. Of that there is no question!

As we chat, another international visitor (not Australian) asks about various caves around the world. Norm advised that most people wouldn’t be able to see any difference between the caves at Waitomo and other caves in Limestone Karst country in other places - and there are many. We Aussies have been making a point of not raising the subject of Jenolan Caves, but the subject is raised by Norm. “Jenolan Caves outside of Sydney is the oldest cave system open for visitors in the world. Being so old it has a lot of very good crystal formations.” Then to directed more to us. “ Ever done the Temple of Baal tour?” “Yeah! That’s a really beautiful cave” we reply. Then he goes on. “The thing I don’t like about Jenolan is that the tours just go around pointing out named features.” I sense a bit of defensiveness in the comment and it’s my turn to be defensive in return. “But there's heaps of caves at Jenolan and all the tours are different and the commentary includes heaps of other things as well, history of exploration and all sorts of other interesting stuff.” A very little bit more chat about some of the specialized tours at Jenolan, which seems intended to show us that Norm knows the guides there and so is well qualified to comment on the subject, is dropped after a finishing comment that follows on from an earlier discussion about how damaging tours are to the caves due to lighting and carbon dioxide..“We’re lucky here at Waitomo, our best caves aren’t open to the public”. I think to myself that there's caves at Jenolan not open to the public too, and one that is reported by people very familiar with all the caves there as the most spectacular of the show caves is only open once a week on Friday nights to a small group, but I bite my tongue. We can’t drop this topic of conversation too soon for me! I would have rather it never came up in the first place. We move on to other less controversial subjects and continue what was overall a very happy pleasant conversation.

After morning tea, as the rain has now eased, most of us walk the short distance over easy terrain to the next cave for a different sort of viewing. For people who are less mobile there is of course the option of heading over in the van again. the Spellbound tour really is very accessible. My mum would have no difficulty with it at all... well except perhaps the slightly up hill walk to morning tea, but it's not far and you have plenty of time in which to do it.

There is a gate to go through to enter this second cave and again a nifty automatic closure system has been improvised out of a large rock with a hole drilled through it, rigged up with a pulley to a prong on the gate. I love these little improvised aspects of the tour. They are so clever!

With a request that ladies please hold the gate for the gents coming after so they don’t get whacked by the gate, we head on in. This is also a very easily accessible level cave with few if any stairs. We head in and then out over the same ground, with different things pointed out on the way in to what is discussed on the way out. There is not a huge amount of crystal. At least not particularly spectacular or memorable crystal, but this does not lessen the interest of this cave. There is enough crystal for the usual explanations of how stalactites and stalagmites are formed, though there are no stalagmites here due to the lack of a firm floor on which they could form. The real attraction here is the features that are special to the Waitomo area. Wai means water and tomo means hole. Waitomo means water going into hole/s. In this cave there are several tomo. These tomo are very common in the area. Sinkholes or more technically called dolines, examples of these were pointed out to us on the bus trip up coming onto the property. Apparently livestock can fall in these holes and be trapped underground and we get a number of illustrations of this during our time in Waitomo. Sunlight can also stream down into the cave creating beautiful effects. This is the sort of feature that the abseiling adventures like Lost World utilize to access underground caves and rivers.


There are also bright white formations which contrast markedly with the rich brown of nearby/underlying crystal. This is explained as the result of a flood at some stage staining the crystal, then new crystal in the snowy white has formed later. It is a very interesting cave with lots of interesting things to learn about and see. Eventually we head back out into the daylight. The whole tour was excellent. It deserves its high rankings online.

We arrive back at the Spellbound hut which is fortunately right outside Huhu café where we plan to have our lunch. First a quick return to the Huhu shop where I purchase another little oil dish by Bob Steiner Ceramics. This time in a slate grey with a huhu beetle on it to remind us of this wonderful cafe. As we chat with the friendly lady serving we notice a cluster of fabulous sculptures of weta on the wall. They are very realistic, though some have exaggerated antennae. Ouch! $450 each. They are very very good though. How awesome a cluster of them would look on the wall at home. Sigh. Again international postage can be arranged with the usual duty free arrangements... maybe one day...

Inside the café I have no need to mull over the menu, I already have decided that I will have the pumpkin romano cheese & rosemary arancini which is further explained as rice balls dusted with seed crumbs & served with romesco sauce & fresh greens ($16). Hubby goes for Bacon and Eggs on Rewana Toast ($13) with sides of chorizo, potato and tomato at extra charge. As we were coming in I saw a salad in the counter fridge that solves a mystery. Israeli cous cous salad…. Ah.. so that’s what that salad was made from on our Air NZ flight last year. I can’t resist getting that. It looks great with roast pumpkin, chopped figs, raisens, tomato and things. Everything is delicious. A really satisfying meal. We’re loving the Huhu café.

By the time we’ve finished time is approaching for us to head up for the 3pm tour of the Aranui Cave with just enough time for a quick stop in to the hotel for something. The Aranui Cave is accessed from the Ruakuri Reserve. We arrive in plenty of time for the tour and assemble with the rest of the group to await the arrival of our guide. Tickets taken and numbers carefully counted then we’re off. It’s a steep walk up to a long set of stairs to enter the cave. Our guide walks quickly and doesn’t wait for anyone or stop anywhere along the way for people to catch up. There are elderly people and kids among the group and some lag quite a way behind.

Once we’re inside the door of the cave time is allowed to catch our breath and the elderly lady looks like she really needs it. She’s breathing very heavily and looking very uncomfortable. Our guide is appropriately sympathetic now. However Hubby and I were among the first to the cave and soon as we get up there the guide said to us all “no-one told you about the stairs coming up did they?” Her tone is one of smug satisfaction which I actually found quite offensive. Well, no, actually they didn’t mention it, but they really should have warned people so that they could make a decision whether they were up to the exertion required.... and you know the guide had ample opportunity to mention it herself when she had the group assembled for the tour at the reserve. The stairs don’t end at the cave door either. There’s quite a few inside this cave as well. I decided to count how many for the benefit of my report . I’ll cut to the chase and say now, that there are approximately 330 steps involved touring the Aranui cave. No ladders. I wouldn’t classify it as a strenuous cave as far as most caves I’ve been in go, other than getting to the cave entrance, the steps are in flights which are interspersed with flat walks, and each step is a comfortable and easy height, but they do add up across the tour as a whole.

The decoration in the Aranui cave is very pretty. There are a lot of stalactites with a plentiful and awe inspiration group of huge rounded stalactites in the entry area like a huge chandelier in the hall of a mountain king. There’s some stalacmites and a few smallish columns. There are large flowstone formations. Right through, the chambers are very high and it’s a very nice cave. Unfortunately there are places where a lot of damage was done in times past where people have broken stalactites and souvenired them, most are repairing themselves with further thin points of crystal having grown down from the broken tips, and it's still a nice show.



The lights throughout the cave are very large and the whole cavern is very brightly lit. It’s very pretty, but in quite a few places there is green growth of algae staining the crystal near the lights. This is pointed out as a consequence of the heat from the lighting and also the carbon dioxide in the breath from all the tourists. I understand from our Spellbound tour that they are planning to relight the caves at Waitomo to minimise the damage the heat from the lights causes.

As we move around the tour named features are pointed out. Hmm. We enjoy this but I belatedly get a bit irritated with Norm’s comments about the Jenolan Tours doing this. If you're going to snipe at this aspect of tours why not make it inclusive to the tours closer to home as well?

There is a large rich brown feature next to other white crystal. It is very similar in effect to the colour contrasts in the Spellbound cave and it quite striking. Spellbound said this was due to a flood a very long time ago. This time the guide says that this discolouration is due to iron oxide and that for some reason it has come in over the crystal there and not anywhere else. It's a rich chocolatey brown colour completely consistent across the crystal, no variation in colour density at all as far as we can tell... and it's a lit feature too, not in the dark... it's very different in look from the iron oxide staining at Jenolan which in our recollection is generally more tinged red..makes the shawls look like large slices of streaky bacon. We're puzzled because these iron oxide type minerals are really really common in Australia - it's why Uluru (and much of Australia) is red.. it's rusting.... also the source of much wealth generated by mining it, so the rich browns in this isolated feature seem quite unusual to us an effect for iron oxide stain. We're also confused by what seems to be different explanations about the cause of the colour on the different tours.

At the conclusion of the tour, again near the entrance the guide gives a torch to hubby and tells him to look up inside a particular formation. I'm thinking that maybe she is going to demonstrate how translucent crystal is but no.. you little beauty! Hubby is looking up into a small colony of cave weta. This is seriously cool. I really love weta!

As everyone leaves, the guide asks us where we are from. “Sydney” we say. Then she comments that she supposes we haven’t been up to Jenolan for years. “No, not at all, we go up about once a year and are gradually working our way through all the caves there as there’s so many”. She asks repeatedly about whether we visit Jenolan and seems to have difficulty accepting that we do actually visit Jenolan and have done so fairly recently rather than a decade ago. Her reaction was pretty weird. I guess maybe she heard our musings about our confusion on the point of iron oxide (which we'd tried to keep to ourselves) but I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps she was wondering what we were doing bothering with the Aranui Cave if we do actually visit Jenolan at home. It’s true, Jenolan, being such old caves, has more impressive crystal to see, but none-the-less we have really enjoyed our walk through the Aranui Cave… and especially seeing the cave weta!

Incidentally a quick bit of research in wikipedia hasn't really helped me with the colours of iron oxide.. the caves museum also says it's iron oxide though.. and I guess surely they must know what the stuff actually is.. but frankly, given the alternate explanation from Spellbound, I'm still wondering.... it seems so strange if it's in the area enough to colour the crystal so extremely and densely at some places, that the majority of other and/or more recent features, even in the same part of the cave, or resting over the same stained area are pure, absolutely pure, snowy white. It is really quite extraordinary and will add a new level of curiosity when we next go up to Jenolan.. maybe we've missed something there that will shed some light..

Leaving the cave we head straight for the Ruarkuri walk, which Norm from Spellbound recommended. It is just across a small area of grass as you return from the Aranui Cave tour at the Ruakuri reserve.

The walk starts off as a nice level walk by the river, then you come to stairs and steep inclines. I guess it should be no surprise given the terrain around the area that the Ruarkuri walk reflects this. I diligently count the steps once more. We did most of the walk, but skipped the last little loop, turning back after the viewing area over the river as it heads into the underground tunnel. I can’t claim to have counted absolutely precisely, but we would have travelled about 240 stairs each way, so 480 stairs along the walk, plus a few sections of just fairly steeply inclined paths. It is a beautiful walk though and we were glad we did it. Just figured it would be useful for people to know before they set out!

Anyway, back to he walk - it's climbs up and around and through the local landscape there are natural tunnels, one of which looks for all the world like it has been man made of rock hewn bricks


and viewpoints where the river tumbles through rock arches.



Lush green forest round about. It is a very pleasant, if fairly strenuous walk.

When we are coming out of the reserve a sign discusses the various caves and walks from that carpark. It’s just blatantly misleading. It says that the Ruarkuri walk is along easy graded paths. Not a word about the number of stairs. It makes it sound like a really easy 30 minute walk when it simply isn’t. We’re sensing a trend, but perhaps this is just due to New Zealand generally being so hilly everywhere we’ve been this trip. Maybe to the locals the fact that a walk will have lots of stairs or inclines and descents just goes without saying. The signage here provides a trap for young players.

We’ve timed it quite well to catch one of the last glow worm cave tours of the day and line up for the 5 oclock tour. By now there’s not that many people around and there’s less than 20 people assembled. While we wait we read about the fire that destroyed the old info centre. The photos of the old building look really nice. How aweful it must have been for this small community to have the fire. It's five years ago though .. I guess when there is an unexpected fire you typically don't have a set of plans for rebuilding tucked away in a drawer somewhere. I guess they have taken their time and thought about what's needed for the future and are trying hard to get it right in the rebuilding to give a solid base for the future... very sensible, despite the time it takes. There's also panels of information attached to the construction site hoarding about the life cycle of the glow worm.

Our guide arrives and he’s quite a performer, but there’s little interaction with the group, and some questions asked again when no answer is given, are just ignored. Few further questions are asked as a consequence. The information is imparted very competently and in an entertaining manner. A few funny stories. It’s all pretty good and worthwhile hearing, but lacks the personal touch. At one point our guide relates how another guide just made up bullshit when asked a question about a flower near the cave entrance by a tourist. This was apparently frowned upon and that guide got a "botany lesson" “and was lucky not get more than that”. The tone of the presentation suggests this is meant to be funny. Well, maybe it would be if we didn’t have a suspicion, from one of our Waitangi tours, it’s not as isolated an incident as you would hope. Our confusion on the issue of iron oxide isn't helping us see the funny side either...

At any rate, having had a pretty good tour of the outer sections of the cave, a good look at the webs from some glow worms and had some pretty good (named) features pointed out, we head down to the boats. There are quite a few stairs in this cave as well. I've fallen down on the stair counting job, but it’s not a very strenuous cave. It would certainly not be any worse overall than the Aranui Cave. Maybe a bit easier, and it looks like it will probably be easier still when the new visitors centre is completed.

Down by the river we all hop in one large boat. It is an aluminium job, more comfortable than the inflatable that Spellbound use. We have been instructed to keep quiet in the boat to maintain the mystique of the experience. Everyone cooperates pretty well. The little kids have some questions for their parents, but they are quiet and you can't resent it when sweet little nippers are really trying to be good. The cavern the boat travels through is fabulous. It’s high and expansive. It’s beautifully quiet with just the noise of dripping water, there's a sense of reverence here under glow worms. There are heaps of glow worms too. Awesome! We go round and round slowly then head to the exit landing.

As we approach the final section of the boat trip our guide says that it's OK with him if people want to take some photos from here on. When his mother goes to take some snaps a little boy behind me pipes up in a loud voice "No! Photos aren't allowed". "But the man said it's OK here" "He's lying! The sign said no photos". There was just no way that little guy was having a bar of this photo business! I try to stifle a hearty laugh. A trip down memory lane. We can so imagine one of our boys having the exact same reaction. Just a brief pause to capture the scene as our guide takes the boat back to the landing where the tours commence, then hubby and I laugh and reminisce about our own rule lover when he too was a little cutey as we walk back up the path.



The Glow Worm cave was really great. No, we’re not under the glow worms as long as with spellbound, but it was awesome. I’m really glad we did this tour. It’s different enough that it’s still interesting and the different guides tell you different stuff although they also cover some common ground. There’s three boats tied up at the landing and at busy times I imagine that as others have reported, it might not feel so relaxed, but certainly later in the day as we have done on this occassion, it’s a most worthwhile tour. Great for people with kids who don’t want the longer Spellbound set of experiences, this tour only being about 45 minutes long. We’re not at all sorry to have gone all out with visiting the caves while we are here.

However, as we head around the first part of the glow worm cave tour, a prominent feature of the guide’s patter was the pointing out of named crystal formations.. and we enjoyed that... but. I’m not just a bit irritated with Norm’s comments about the Jenolan tours now. I’m downright snakey. It's a free world and people can like or dislike whatever they choose to as far as cave tours go, but why single out Jenolan for pointing out the named crystal formations in the caves there, when the cave tours at Waitomo do the exact same thing!

In fact, perhaps there is more reason for doing it at Jenolan as the system of show caves open to tours there is far far more complex than the simple in/out route taken in the Aranui and Glow Worm caves at Waitomo... At Jenolan even the guides can lose their way if they don’t memorise the formations and the order you take to see them, and the turns you make after particular ones. Features are named when caves are being explored for that reason. There is one tour we did at Jenolan not so long ago and when you've reached the end point of the tour the guide says, see if you can remember the formations you've seen. You guys lead us back out by following the order of formations and turns. It was really quite difficult to do and a very interesting exercise, without our guide we would have been in those caves forever!

.. And why make a comment that implies that Jenolan don’t tell all the other stuff they tell on tours at Waitomo or with Spellbound when at Jenolan they actually tell you every bit as much! Makes no difference to me, I am familiar with Jenolan, but there were others present who don't know any better and who may get entirely the wrong impression. Jenolan has genuinely spectacular crystal formations, including cool stuff like helictites and one large feature known as the gem of the west which is covered in them. Jenolan also has cool stuff like an incredibly slow moving river that has effects I won't spoil by revealing here.. and a tassie devil skeleton - they've been extinct on the mainland for a long long time. The caves at Jenolan are really wonderful and their tours are really great as well, but Jenolan does not have glow worms to see, or tomos, or cave weta or moa skeletons. The limestone rock through which the cave is formed is very different and interesting at Waitomo and the shape of the caves is pretty cool too, with high ceilings and more water and rivers that are fast flowing and noisy.. even without doing the adventure stuff, at which Waitomo is clearly ahead of the game, Waitomo has plenty of stuff of interest to see that you won’t see at Jenolan, or that is sufficiently different to be worthwhile, but these comments about the Jenolan tours, which seem to have been driven by some sort of defensiveness arising from Jenolan's superior crystal, have really got up my nose.

The walk back up to the carpark is uphill but not very far. When the new information centre is completed it appears that it will be positioned so that you basically go in and come out via the building.

By now it’s coming on for 6pm. We have reserved an outside table at Huhu for dinner. There’s a convention of triumph sports car owners arrived at the Waitomo Hotel. The carpark is jam packed with cute little classic vehicles and it’s looking like the hotel restaurant is going to be very busy tonight, so we’re glad to be heading back to the Huhu to our table that we booked when paying for dinner last night.. the menu has some more things we are keen to sample. I have had my eye on the housemade fettucine with garlic, cherry tomatoes, fresh green leaves and parmesan (goat feta is an option I can happily forgo) $16. Hubby goes for the Manuka Honey and Chili Prawns with tomato chili jam, avocado salsa and crispy lavash $18. My fettucine is nice, maybe a little bland without the goat cheese, it’s blown out of the water by hubby’s prawns. Oh man they were fabulous! Would I like to swap dishes half way? You bet!! And hubby isn’t complaining about his Speights gold medal ale either… in fact when we got home I asked hubby which out of all the NZ beers he sampled, was his favourite. Speights Gold Medal Ale was the winner.

I’ve got no hope of gaining ground on the main course as we’ve both gone for the free range chicken breast stuffed with romano cheese, wrapped in pancetta served with spiced fruit, mashed potato and warm green bean and spinach salad $26. It is very delicious and beautifully cooked.

It’s a beautiful evening and we are enjoying the views and the cool evening air as we await delivery of our desserts. We have to sample the Piopio blueberry cheesecake with lightly whipped vanilla bean crème fraiche ($14); can’t resist another go at the caramelized rum bananas; and after a brief struggle hubby insists we also sample the Double chocolate brownie with fresh berries, raspberry coulis and whipped cream ($12). Decidedly decadent. I have to report that the cheesecake was wonderful. Not your average run of the mill type of thing at all. It was a beautifully soft unbaked cheese filling in a delicate pastry shell, and topped with the lovely crème fraiche and blueberries of just the right level of ripeness. We like our blueberries while they still have a little tang to them, as they get more ripe they get decidedly tasteless, but these are just right. Delicious.

The Brownie is soft and rich and oh so intensely chocolate. Nice, but I am not a chocoholic. That’s more hubby’s scene. The bananas are great too and the hokey pokey ice cream is crunchy and creamy. A fabulous meal once again and for what you get it’s extremely good value. I particularly liked the fact that the mains came with vegetables and there was no need to order your veges and pay extra again. We highly recommend the Huhu café. Great food, great service, great ambience. We loved it.

Back to the hotel and we watch an program about psychics helping solve NZ crimes hosted by Rebecca Gibney. It’s really interesting and apparently a regular Thursday night thing. Keeps me up later than I intended, but then it’s determinedly close the laptop and off to the land of nod.

Pt 12 - Auckland to Waitomo and Otorohanga Kiwi House; Huhu Cafe for dinner

Wednesday 24th February 23, 2010 Auckland to Waitomo inc Otorohanga Kiwi House; Waitomo Caves Hotel and Huhu Cafe

We muck about getting petrol, with some frustration arising from incorrect directions provided by the reception staff at Quay West. It is 10:30 am by the time we are heading out of Auckland on the Southern Motorway. Leaving Auckland and merging onto the motorway there is actually a set of traffic lights controlling the merge. This seems to us to be an unnecessary delay for motorists. Is it really necessary?
We wonder if drivers around here unbelievably rude to eachother or something? Surely they could handle just taking turns on a voluntary basis…. but. we have seen no evidence of driver discourtesy that would warrant such an intevention. Ultimately it is explained that this trickle feeding of cars onto the motorway is in an attempt to ease congestion and keep the traffic free flowing.



The scenery is pretty similar to the rural views around Northland for a while, then at Rangiriri there is a promise of things to come as we wiz past a majestic view down across some wetlands to the ranges beyond. There are signs for turns to the wetland and to Rangiriri Pa. It seems like a fun place to explore if more time was available. These late nights and late getaways are starting to become frustrating.

The landscape is brown. Dried in the summer heat in a period of unusually low rainfall. We pass through some sections where roadworks are underway and we are advised to wash our car the same day if we should get concrete splashes on it anywhere. We have passed a lot of roadworks in our travels this trip so there’s quite a few sections where travel time has been extended as a result.

Our next sign of note comes as we are alerted in brown that there is a lookout to the local power station… hmm.. we just can’t resist it so we chuck a uey and head back and pull over into the viewing layby where a mobile coffee shop has set up operations. It is indeed a clear view of a large power station across a river. It seems from the look of it that some effort was put into making the power station an interesting and modern looking edifice.



Huntly itself seems a nice little town. It was a good decision to erect some nice ornate poles for the street lighting. A little way along there is a sign to a Coal Museum. Ah ha. So it is a coal fired powered station. That’s interesting. You don’t hear about NZ’s coal industry much at all. A coal museum sounds rather quirky and interesting.. I wish I had more time today. Looking into it on their website, apparently Huntly Power Station is the countrys’ largest thermal power station. Its generating units burn either coal, gas or a combination of the two, and can provide up to 20% of New Zealands electricity.

Huntly township has a flash set of electronic public toilets in the main street too if a comfort stop is needed. In our experience these sorts of facilities involve a small payment, but we don’t check this one so can’t say for sure what if any cost might be involved.

Leaving Huntly there is a long avenue of large evergreen magnolias.. these big magnolias seem a popular choice around this part of New Zealand.

It is a fairly uneventful drive heading down to Hamilton. We decide to take the SH1B when we see a sign to an historic home and garden along that route. We continue to follow the brown signs and we end up at a lovely place called Woodlands. There is also a Woodlands Café nicely set overlooking a cute playing field. The house itself is a beautiful and ornate white weatherboard set in “gardens of significance”. We are really tempted to stop here , but the café looks not quite open yet, though there are people about. Hamilton Gardens is just down the road. We decide we had better just be satisfied with the quick squizz we have had and head to Hamilton Gardens… a decision we come to regret.

It’s interesting skirting around the edge of Hamilton on this side. We note new housing developments with virtually non-existent backyards. .. like new developments everywhere, it seems. Very much like new developments at home at any rate.

You can’t miss the entrance to Hamilton Gardens as the main routes heading generally south throw you straight at them. We have no difficulty parking today. It’s bang on lunch time and the weather is quite warm. Lunch is a priority but I can’t resist a slight detour to admire some beautiful remote control boats that are operating on the lake.



Turns out the restaurant is closed today for a private function but the café is open. We wander around and find a large group of outdoor tables with umbrellas and a small doorway into the café. They offer pretty standard fare. Burgers, lamb salad, chicken salad, various Panini or croissants. We place our order – croissant and salad and a burger with wedges and head out to the last available table to wait for delivery. We wait ....and wait… and wait. I guess I got off lightly, my croissant doesn’t come from the kitchen apparently and so I only have to wait 20 mins or thereabouts. Hubby’s hamburger is a kitchen product and it’s about 40 mins before the food is brought out. It’s getting pretty warm even with the protection offered by the umbrella. Oh how we wish we’d stopped at Woodlands House and Woodlands Café! My salad is nicely dressed but is mostly lettuce leaves. The bacon on the croissant is dry and hard. As have the other burgers we’ve tried, hubby’s burger has a sort of sausage patty for the meat. We’re concluding that kiwi burgers are intended to use crappy meat. The café at the Museum yesterday also used crappy meat and overall that café was pretty high quality, so this must be how kiwis prefer their burgers.. oh well, each to their own we suppose.

It’s hot and we’re over it by the time we’ve finished lunch and time is slipping away. I can however report that the toilets were pretty darn impressive.



We prioritise the Kiwi House at Otorohanga over a walk around the gardens. These late starts have just got to end. They are really cramping my travel style!

It’s only a pretty short drive down into Waikato. Waikato is pretty. There are more mountains and apparently they have had more rain. Though we have noted that even in the brown regions where rain has been limited the dams are full. It’s a kind drought that still leaves the dams full!



We pass through Te Awamutu noting for hubby that this is the Finn brothers’ home town. It’s quite substantial and prosperous looking. I note the sign out to Yarndley’s brush remnant forest, but we have no time for more detours…grr.
Otorohanga has lined the long main road with hanging baskets of flowers. Nice Touch.



Once again the Kiwi House is well signposted. Just a few cars in the carpark. We head on in and pay our $16 entry.

The first stop on the route through the park is the kiwi house. Here we find two male north island brown kiwi. One from Taranaki and the other from Northland. They are so adorable and it is so interesting seeing them reaching up as they fossick around their enclosure. You just get so used to seeing them in their downward facing fossicking pose you don’t think about what they might look like when they look up.

Moving on there are a number of enclosures with young geckos and tuatara. One enclosure includes some beautiful bright green fellows that look like the ones we saw news reports about saying people try to smuggle them out of the country. I have to say, they are very beautiful so I can understand why they would be in demand… not that that justifies smuggling such a rare little guy out of their habitat of course.

There are a lot of different sorts of skinks and reptiles, most native to New Zealand. The Otago skink climbs up and demonstrates its preference for sunning itself on rock ledges. There are also foreign reptiles such as leopard geckos from Asia and the middle east which is really cool.

Very active and entertaining, the tuatara are a hit as they get stuck into their dinner of what we assume are probably meal worms or something.



On we go to visit the birds. At the pond we enjoy watching some other tourists feeding the ducks. Lovely little Pateke (brown teal). They are so dainty. A few of these individuals are injured or deformed. One has a deformed foot, another a broken bill. Lucky they have made it here where they have an easier time of it than in the wild.



By comparison the Parere (grey ducks) seem huge. The big threat to Parere is cross breeding with mallards… yes, like the Pacific Black Duck in Australia, which is an extremely similar bird.. but PBD’s aren’t in so much trouble as far as I know.

Several enclosures house the flightless Campbell Island Teal. One of the rarest ducks on earth and subject of a captive breeding program. We pause for a while to look at one male still in breeding colour. Cool.



Nearby, what I thought might be a young black stilt wanders about in the enclosure with a Campbell Island Teal. The black stilt is another beautiful indigenous bird that is subject to captive breeding programs, as we know from our visit to the black stilt hide near Twizel last November. However it turns out this bird is actually a pied stilt. Stilts and avocets are such nifty birds!

An enclosure with varied Oystercatches is interesting too. The perils of not bringing your birding field guide.. these varied oystercatchers may well be what we've been seeing around the place and I've been thinking of as than pied or sooty oystercatchers. The varied oystercatchers can have either black or white plumage colouration. Interesting. Water birds have never been my strongpoint! (I'm more a teeny little bush birds enthusiast as a general rule.)



We’re not done with the extremely rare creatures yet. Soon we are watching a female Antipodes Island Parakeet as she feeds in the grasses of the enclosure. Currently raising chicks hatched in January this bird is yet another participant in a captive breeding program. Insurance against a disaster occurring to the wild population.

We head into the large free flight aviary and find ourselves shadowed by a Pateke. It flies after us time after time, almost skimming our heads and then perching just ahead of us.. clearly expecting we should have bought the duck food on sale at the entrance. .. which I would recommend doing, even though we didn’t.

We wander past enclosures with north island kaka and kea. The kaka are asleep and the kea are missing the lively intelligence in their eyes and over all expressiveness that is such a great feature of the wild birds we have seen. I guess it’s a mind numbingly boring life for a kea in an aviary. I wonder what they are given to do. These captive birds have dry plumage. In the wild all the birds we saw were wet. When dry the feathers have a beautiful metallic green sheen.. that’s no substitute for the lively eyes though.

Back at the gift shop they have the cards Mum wanted me to pick up. The blue bird.. ah yes, it’s the kokako. It does look very blue on this card. That has to be the one she means. I had asked daughter 2 to check it and get me more detail but I’ve not heard back about it.. with her responsibilities as bridesmaid and medical studies in full swing, no doubt she’s being run ragged. I’ll just have to wing it. The bird call cards are expensive here though, the most expensive outlet for them I saw anywhere in all our NZ travels. Ah well, it’s for a good cause. The lady serving tells me that the calls were all recorded from live birds in the wild and it took ages to get them all clearly for the cards.

It turned out that mum actually wanted a bellbird card! Fortunately (?) although she already has a kokako card it has stopped working, so this new one was welcome.. phew!

We hop back in the car and its only a short drive through to Waitomo Caves Hotel. We are staying in the old section of the hotel. Weatherboard and over a hundred years old. It’s a spectacular building. Really gorgeous, but this section at least is in great need of restoration. We understand from overheard conversation at breakfast that renovations are being progressively undertaken and we are very pleased to hear it. This magnificent and no doubt iconic building deserves the best care. It will no doubt take millions of dollars to complete the job. Accommodation will no doubt be very expensive when they are finished. While the room we are in is showing it’s age we are pleased to contribute the dollars and keep the place with money coming in to hopefully contribute the resurrection of “a grand old dame” as one guest book comment put it.

Dinner is at the huhu café. We rang ahead and made a booking at the last minute and just as well. They are busy tonight, but they are coping brilliantly. Our first course we restrict ourselves to the Rewana bread with oils and butter. We don’t like the oil this time, a bit too peppery perhaps, but that’s no loss as the butter on the rewana bread is delicious.

So much on the menu we’d like to try, but we stick to just getting a main. Hubby goes for the crispy duck with citrus, pancetta & watercress salad, kumara mash, orange and port wine jelly ($35) and I have the organic sirloin steak with potato hash cake, peppercorn salsa verde, thyme roasted tomatoes and caramelised ($35). Both are totally delicious but hubby wins without any difficulty. Hmm. With the mains so good we cannot resist the dessert. We don’t need the menu. We decided earlier which were the irresistible looking options. Hubby goes for the caramelised rum banana on toasted banana bread with hokey pokey icecream ($12) I go for the oven roasted stone fruit with vanilla bean ice cream and brandy basket ($12). Delicious on both counts, the stone fruit a good choice if you don't like your dessert too be oversweet. Hubby says he won again… well… it’s pretty close on the dessert front I think, but overall he must be declared the winner.

Home for an early night which I badly need. Local TV stations doing their best to foil my plan but I hold strong and shut my eyes. Big day coming up tomorrow.

Pt 11 - Auckland Museum; Movie; Tamaki Drive; Le Sud with ATC

Tuesday 23 February - Auckland Museum; the movie; Tamaki Drive; le sud with ATC
Ah, wonderful to be back in Auckland. At 9:55am we are pulling up into a convenient parking spot outside the Auckland Museum and War Memorial. We pause to pay respects at the cenotaph staying clear of the construction site which is underway in a redevelopment of the area around the cenotaph. Around the cenotaph in the paving there is a reminder to all that this is sacred ground, tread not upon it without reverence. What a good idea to include this statement this way.




Inside the Museum we make a spur of the moment decision to do the Maori experience which consists of a performance $25 and then a guided tour $10. These run throughout the day but naturally, given the time, we go for the 11 am option.

Before heading into the galleries we have a quick look at the museum shop noticing the wall of illuminated glass.. the glass is nice but best of all there is a table of books… a table of military history books… mmmm tempting.... but oh so heavy. Lucky we have a good 15kgs we can allocate to souvenirs!

With time of the essence I tear myself away from the books and make a b line for the second floor. This is where the War Memorial and military sections are located. The first thing that draws attention is a large and beautiful memorial to those killed in the World War 1. The names of the fallen carved in panels around the room. F E Flower; W Hohepa; so many Ryans.







Nearby there is a small room that tells the story of the memorial and that explains the symbolism used in the designs. What a great thing to include even though space is precious. The flags shown are those of all the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles.

Across the way there is a small but moving gallery dedicated to the Holocaust. There are panels that give a brief summary of the stories of survivors of the Holocaust that migrated to New Zealand. Above these small panels is a mosaic of photographs and on the opposite wall a brief run down of the steady procession of persecution and then genocide perpetrated by the Nazis.

I step into another area to find a whole street of fascinating recreations. An oyster bar, a tavern.. it’s the same sort of style of presentation as we have seen at Dargaville and Matakohe. It’s simply brilliant. Experiential. Wonderful for kids to really get a feel for the history. Indeed there are kids in here zipping around in and out of the various shop fronts and looking like they are really enjoying themselves.

Moving on I arrive at a fairly plain room with a high walkway where you can view a Japanese Zero. Fabulous. Alongside is a display about the last pilot of this particular plane and another display donated by a Japanese veteran. His uniform, sword and band with embroidered tiger. What a fascinating set of exhibits. Hubby tells me that there was also a spitfire in another gallery… but I didn’t get that far.



I only have time for the briefest of looks through galleries on the New Zealand wars, Boer War and reconstructions of WWI trenches and so forth. It’s all fabulously done.

Exploring further I find the beautiful World War II memorial. I love the use of the stained glass in the memorials. Panels in the same gallery list the fallen from Korea, Malaya/Borneo, and Vietnam. It's a beautiful space.







There is also a plaque from a memorial to US Fallen from somewhere in the Pacific theatre.. but there is no explanation of how it came to be here in the Auckland War Memorial, which is frustrating. There are some memorials in Canberra Australia along Anzac Ave that were relocated from their original positions nearer battle sites overseas but they are memorials to the Australian dead. They have of course been relocated when the political situation in the country made relocation necessary or sensible. How this memorial to the US fallen came to be here in New Zealand is a mystery though.

With so much to see I hate having to head downstairs and almost regret having said we’d see another cultural show.

As we arrive downstairs they are blowing the conch shell and the warriors are issuing a challenge to those assembled for the show. We have the protocols explained. Please take as many photos and videos as you like. Our warriors love cameras. This meeting area is spectacular. The carved buildings and artifacts, it’s really marvelous. We head into the performance area and are fortunate to get a seat in the front row.

The show is wonderful. I am so glad we decided to see it. They explain a great deal about the meaning of things. More than the other shows We’ve seen so far. The performers are of a high calibre. This is particularly evident in the stick game demonstrations, but everything is so beautifully done. The Maori cultural performances are so cool. I see no issue with seeing multiple shows. They are fun to watch and beautiful to listen to. This show concludes with a traditional chant. Apparently most of the stuff you see with guitar accompaniment is not the pre-european style of performance, so it is great to see the original form. There is also a haka, but it also is not the wording that is so often performed, which is simply the most famous haka.

Immediately following the show the performers pose for photos with people and then we assemble for the guided tour of the hall. We don maori style cloaks and start with an introduction to the ancestors whose portraits by Goldie are displayed along a wall. They are magnificent portraits no question. The Goldie collection of portraits are all housed here. There’s another famous Maori portrait painter (name escapes me) and his portraits are in the Auckland Art Gallery. We get a run down on moko, how they were done and what they mean. It is all completely fascinating.

Next we move across to a fabulously carved store house which was from the Rotorua area. Each store house such as this has it’s own name. I am sorry I can’t remember the name of this one. Some of the carvings are explained and some of the significance and protocols about accessing such places were explained. Then we head over to the waka. The waka was actually one used during the New Zealand wars. Carved from one enormous tree. The symbolism of the carving is explained and we begin to run out of time. The next show is about to start and our guide needs to be off. We have time for an introduction to the carved meeting house of our guide’s forebears. We are introduced to the carving of our guide’s ancestor and encouraged to head on in (in bare feet as protocol requires) to say hello. This house was abandoned for 50 years before being given to the museum to preserve. Across the hall our guide’s grandfather and grandmother have busts. The grandfather is there to look after the tribal house.. our guide is there to look after both the house and her grandfather. Finally the tour concludes with us being invited across to cleanse and show the ancestors that they need to stay here when we leave. Though quite brief the whole tour has been so worth the $10. Just fascinating. Do it.

I really want to head back to the second floor.. but it’s after 12pm and there’s somewhere I want to be at 1pm. We decide we had best head to the museum café and grab some lunch. We sample a range of things and find everything very good. I wouldn’t hesitate to eat there again. Quite reasonable value considering location, price and quality and it’s a nice ambience there in the atrium also.

Lunch gobbled and our parking time limit nearly up but before we leave I head back and pick up a few books.Especially since I didn't get to explore the material upstairs as much as I would have liked. NZ SAS the first 50 years by Ron Crosby – I have no idea what the NZ SAS specialize in or what their origins are, so that will be interesting. All the various special forces around the place are different and have their own particular take on what they figure will be useful to their own nation. .. The Aussie SAS specializes in deep penetration and intelligence gathering, though with the capacity for undertaking offensives also of course.

Another acquisition – Anzacs at the frontiers 1941-1945 Volume 1 Northern Italy by Ken Fenton focuses on Anzac POWs in Italy WW2. .. and the final choice is a kiwi perspective of some blood bath battles of WW1. Titled Dark Journey: Three Key New Zealand Battles of the Western Front by Glyn Harper. The great fat book on the Maori Battalion looks interesting too, and surprisingly it’s also only about $50, but woah is it heavy ..oh well, I’ll leave that for now.. I still have the Army Museum near Taupo to go yet and I’m expecting a lot of stuff there about the Maori Battalion.

We head for a parking station as close as we can get to the Academy cinema. That's right. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is still playing. Hubby parks while I go get the tickets. We are in luck it’s two for the price of one on Tuesdays (just as well given what we’ve paid to park). We settle in for a movie treat. This is a movie of the first book in an absolutely brilliant trilogy. Fantastic books. They really deserve the best seller status they have achieved world wide. The Swedes have done a brilliant job of bringing the story to the screen. We have to see the Swedish version, because although it is rumoured that Hollywood are making a movie of this book, I am just so sure they will muck about with the story or not be explicit enough in some events… or decide some big name should play the characters.. I’m so glad to have seen it. I can’t wait for the sequels..

On our way to the car we join the queue at the Korean Pancake joint we noticed last time we were up this way. We choose a red bean and a sweet pancake which is the tradition way the Koreans eat this, that they call ho dduk. A newspaper article in the window says they sell between 250 and 400 of these things a day. No wonder! they are cheap as. The savoury versions are popular while we wait. Cheese and chicken, cheese and vege. A bargain basement and filling meal option only a couple of dollars each.

We pay our extortionate parking fee ($26 or thereabouts) and head up to check out where the Maidment Theatre is. Hmm. No convenient parking really. I don’t fancy walking up that hill from either of the two parking stations on the opposite side of the park.

While we’re out and about we decide to take a drive out along Tamaki Drive through Mission Bay and on along the beaches. We see the Stone House restaurant, I was considering having a meal there. It is in a great spot. This drive gives us quite a different take on Auckland. We figure this must be the equivalent of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Here where access to a lovely golden sand beach is so easy I bet real estate prices are high. Some pohutukawa is flowering along the avenue. A deep dark red. Different to the brighter colour of the southern rata. Is this the colour generally or are the flowers on this one aging I wonder.

Just time for a brief rest, then we decide a taxi will be the most convenient and fastest way to get to the Maidment Theatre for Auckland Theatre Company’s production of Le Sud. The cab arrives very quickly to Quay West and $8.60 later we are alighting and walking down the side road a little way to enter the theatre and collect our tix from the box office. A program is an inexpensive addition and good value with lots of relevant background information to help us understand what's going on. I figure the program will be more than usually necessary and I’m expecting to have some of the jokes skim right over our heads given that this play is locally written political satire. The audience seems to be enthusiastically patronizing the bar. Almost no one isn’t holding a glass of wine or something and it's quite a crush getting through.

The Maidment is a fairly small theatre, but does have both stalls and dress circle. The show starts off with a lot of dialogue in French… possibly not terribly correct French but we struggle to catch much of the references in this bit… our French language skills are pretty much non-existant. What we do catch is funny though. The show becomes increasingly accessible as it goes on. I am glad to have done some research before arrival and glad that we have already been in the country a bit before trying to do this show justice. I won’t say more about the clever jokes… except to say that I now understand the real reason there is a discussion of the possible renaming of New Zealand officially to Aotearoa… it’s so kiwis march out before the Aussies at the Olympics.. LOL.

The show, having commenced at 6:30 pm, finished at 9pm. It’s an easy walk across the park where the lantern festival is in the midst of being set up. It looks like quite a festival. Reminds me of Hyde Park in Sydney when the Festival of Sydney is on. We head on back into the main part of the city and on to Quay West. It’s been an easy 15 min walk back with no rushing at all.
Its been another awesome day.. still loving Auckland. What a shame we need to move on tomorrow..

Pt 10 - Bayly's Beach; Maungaraho Rock; Tokatoka Peak; Kauri Museum; On to Auckland

Monday 22 February – Baylys beach; Maungaraho Rock; Tokatoka Peak; Kauri Museum; on to Auckland.

The weather is beautiful again today for our exploration into Auckland. After such a late night, it’s no surprise that we are slow to rise and depart yet again.

Our first stop, just a little way down the road is Nelson’s Kaihu Kauri. We were thinking of maybe having a look here on our way past yesterday and now we’re doubly keen for a look having watched the interesting video of the swamp kauri operation at the Dargaville Museum. They have a large assortment of kauri products, bowls, vases, tables and knick nacks. A large room next door has a diplay of larger furniture items including some nice tables. The slab tables show the grain of the kauri so beautifully and we end up discussing custom built furniture and international shipping and having a walk through the slab room.. Turns out kauri, though so slow growing is a soft wood but this can be addressed by making a sensible choice of finish. The browsing and chatting consumes a good hour.. a bit more than we had intended.

As we approach Dargaville I can’t resist taking a little side trip, only 8kms to Baylys Beach. Access to the beach isn’t all that straightforward with the road simply leading right onto the sand and not a lot of obvious nearby parking. There’s a sign in town saying not to take vehicles onto the beach without checking conditions with locals as the sand can be soft. We have no plan to go anywhere near sand with our hire car of course, we’re just here for a bit of a squiz. We hit paydirt too. This place is crawling with cute authentic little baches. Some are brightly coloured. I love the tendency we’ve been noticing of people to really be bold with colour on their cute weatherboard houses of all sizes. These batches are cute as.



I find myself wondering whether the powers that be have thought to give some sort of heritage protection to little bach communities like this one.. there’s a similar little community in the Royal National Park in Sydney. Depression era. No road access at all, you have to hike around to them. They are exactly the same sort of thing as these batches.  I was told that they are slated for destruction. That you cannot buy or sell them. You can only inherit them, and even inheritance has a limited duration. Eventually when the current owners and their families are gone, the next generation will just lose rights to them.. well that’s what I’ve been told anyway..after we get home I learn that these huts in the Royal National Park are heritage listed and am very pleased to hear it.

Just above the little cluster of baches at Baylys Beach is a new development. Sections (blocks of land) are for sale. They seem to have a range of displayed prices from 170K to 245K. Nice views from some of them. Though we haven’t searched extensively there doesn’t seem to be much to this community other than the dwellings and a café/shop. I do hope that people building do something sympathetic to the little baches below when the time comes.

We head on back towards Dargaville, encouraged by our first little foray into the wilds. The plan now is straight through towards Matakohe .. hmm. A brown sign. Maungaraho Rock. Oh why not. We chuck a uey and head down the side road to discover the unbeaten track. Towards the end of the way the fairly winding road becomes gravel that terminates in a loop at the base of a large and impressive hunk of stone.



A broad paddock gate leads to a grassy path and an old painted sign. One foot follows the other and before I know it they have taken me up some old overgrown treated pine stairs as per the map on the sign, though the path signage encourages an alternate route, not consistent with the sign. I am bush bashing my way around the western face of the rock where the path is plain to see but extensively overgrown. My footwear is not exactly appropriate and I give thanks that I’m not likely to meet with some disgruntled venomous reptile in the leaf litter.

The track winds around until it heads distinctly upward and emerges at a narrow ledge with expansive views of the surrounding district. I carefully manoevre myself so I can sit safely well away from danger while I have a look at the view. I guess that is Tokatoka Peak across in the distance. I watch as a herd of cattle is moved along the dirt road far below.




After taking a few view shots I head down, thankful that hubby doesn’t seem to have followed this way. No sooner than the thought is completed I see a blue t-shirt. Heading my way. Ah. Hubby has not the fear of heights that I have. He will go up there. He will stand on that little perch where I sat and it will creep me out completely. I figure best if I just don’t watch.

A short wait and hubby is done with the view and we move on. The track continues around behind the rock. Hubby shows me the cut on his hand where he was attacked by the local vegetation as he tried to brush it aside going past. Do we have some betadine? No. Mum is the first aid kit specialist on our travels usually and I didn't think to pack one. As if by magic, a kawakawa plant appears right there beside the track. Just the thing. We pick a leaf and apply it to the wound as described for such circumstances by our various Maori instructors on tours we have had.



The eastern side of Maungaraho rock is less overgrown. It is cool and shady under the large native trees and ferns. Not a lot of undergrowth in the dense shade. The ground is dry with so little rain of recent months but there is plenty of leaf litter which can be slippery on the slope even now. We carefully pick our way around the narrow path.


Some excitement as I find a small cicada shell. What is it about cicada shells! Everyone I know is tickled whenever they find cicada shells. A special part of childhood we just don’t seem to lose when we become jaded in so many other respects. I guess it’s the magical process associated with the cicada crawling out of the earth, up on a tree , then splitting open; struggling free of it’s straight jacket, uncrumpling it’s wings and drying them and flying away to become the sound of summer. The dried shell a lasting memorial to metamorphosis and the wonder of nature.

We duck under a spider web that has been constructed across the path. The owner of this web must be all of 5 or 6 mm across but is very prettily decorated.



We trudge through some fairly long grass along the boundary fence of the reserve and finally make it back to the car for a cool drink. Maungaraho Rock is not a must see. The views are good, but not so unique they are unmissable. What we have enjoyed most is the solitude and the opportunity to just explore something a bit different to the usual tourist stuff you are always hearing about.

With the views from the rock I’m thinking we probably can skip Tokatoka peak. However I can’t ignore my curiousity so I make the turn when it comes up. The gravel section of the road is a bit longer this time and there’s a short parking bay just alongside a style for clambering over the wire fence. I understand the track is steep but quite short. A little umming and ahhing and we go in. The sign warns that the path can be slippery.



The path is rough.It’s dry now of course and some cracks are opening up in the earth. The slope isn’t too bad for a while. There are another couple of styles as you cross the fence to a small protected paddock where there is a strong and pleasant aromatic fragrance of the bushland. Beyond this fence the route then takes on the character of a long flight of improvised stairs. Not really stairs. More like smooth foot shaped indentations in the earth that have filled with treacherous leaf litter. It’s hard work. Up and up we go. Who’s idea was this? Hubby is ahead of me. It’s much easier with longer legs. The higher you go the more the view impresses. I pause to catch my breath at a flax plant. I'm not the first to pause here. There is a leaf that has been roughly split and plaited. Trackside entertainment apparently.

Have I mentioned I really don’t like heights much at all? Usually I can keep it under control. I’m careful and don’t push it too hard and I am seldom impeded in exploring and experiencing most accessible places. As I am within sight of the summit I look around. Yeah, the view up there must be amazing.. No… no definitely not going up there. I sing out to let hubby know not to wait for me as I’m not coming. He was ahead of me and has enthusiastically clambered onto the viewing space, He encourages me on, and having caught my breath I steel myself for another attempt. “Come on” says hubby “there’s a huge flat area up here it’s worth it. The view is amazing”. I look up and around at the general terrain and think "huge flat area my arse... and anyway the very narrow "path" the rest of the short way and the move from path to flat looks extremely perilous".


I take a couple of steps and feel panic rising.
“I. Am. Not. Coming. Up. There.” Says I. “I’m freakin’ terrified!” Hubby can tell from the tone of my voice that I’m out of here. He comes and gets the camera off me and gives me the car keys. Relieved, I give instructions for hubby to be sure and scream really loudly if he falls off so I know to call emergency services... then I summon the courage to back slowly down the “stairs” using both hands and feet, pausing as hubby demands a piker photo.



Tokatoka peak is not for the faint hearted or elderly… or kids… well, not for most people really I guess. I think Hubby is quite pleased to have done it though, so that’s good. Shame about the argument I had with a mound of earth when parking, but he marks on the bumper should buff out.



B-line to the Kauri Museum at Matakohe now. Getting late and we’re hungry after all our exercise today, so first order of business on arrival after brief nod to the war memorial, is to grab a bite at the Gumdiggers Café across the road. It’s a lovely spot out on the back verandah looking over the farmland views with a gentle zephyr drifting through. We sample a pretty good caramel milkshake as we wait for our Tane Mahuta burgers. The Tane Mahuta burger is just a burger with bacon and egg. The meat patty is pretty sausagey, but over all there is a good amount of salad, and beetroot. It’s an excellent burger.. but it’s better without the “meat” patty. .. if they used good quality meat it would be brilliant.

The Kauri Museum is a very impressive place. They have made rooms, similar to those they have assembled at Dargaville, only these are even more extensive and the mannequins are even modeled on local people who are descendents of the first European settlers to the area. It’s quite extraordinary.
Some galleries are experiencing some power problems so that cuts down the time required for our exploration today.

The area that made the most impact on me contained a slab/s from a large tree that was killed by lightning or something on someone’s farm and so was milled. This tree was dead of course not directly killed by logging, but it represents all the many thousands if not millions of ancient trees consumed for lumber. For comparison on the end wall they have a round from this huge, though comparatively small, kauri of hundreds of years of age. Around it they have drawn the sizes of other large kauri living and gone. Even the girth of Te Manua Ngahere is considerably smaller than the largest kauri trees known. Not that these enormous specimens were necessarily typical of course. It is so so sad to stand and contemplate what has been lost. I feel like I'm visiting the forest equivalent of Auschwitz and am filled with sorrow.

I turn away and head into another area. There are large rooms filled with logging related machinery and gum digging machinery similar to that at Dargaville, but I'm too sad to get into it. I come to a huge recreation (or is it relocation) of a two storey weatherboard boarding house which is in turn full of recreated rooms and stores as we saw nearer the museum entrance.

As I am returning from the boarding house in the corridor, tucked away back in a relative backwater, I was so pleased to find an answer to something I have been wondering about as we've explored Northland. The Waipoua Forest Trust has bought farmland and is replanting kauri forest. Starting with manuka as a nurse plant then using seed collected from the forest, and Tane Mahuta in particular, to grow more forest. The kauri is quite shallow rooted and relies in part on being in a forest of giants to provide protection from storms and their buffeting winds. This and a few fairly shallow peg roots, and the sheer size and weight of the tree, keep it upright. We have been in so many places where this information would have been useful, or could have been promoted. We would gladly have bought a kauri or other plant for the program or just donated money and yet the work of the trust is nigh invisible to tourists. If I could make one suggestion for improvement for our visit to the forest and it’s information centre or tour businesses involving kauri and their forests it would be to promote opportunities for donation and a sort of Trees for Travellers program like what they are doing at the cape and in Kaikoura.

It is a business-like drive in to Auckland from Matakohe. I'm too slow on the shutter button to catch a nice shot of both Maungaraho Rock and Tokatoka Peak as a backdrop to the pastures through which we are travelling.

This time we opt for using the tollway and find it, predictably, a lovely wide fast road nicely planted with native plants in the landscaping on the nearby slopes disrupted by its apparently recent construction. I am pleased to note that I have learned to identify kauri where they are present in the patches of remnant forest as we travel. (Only Totara, Rimu etc etc to learn now!)

Arriving in Auckland we would like to get out and sample Gina’s or a French place in Victoria Rd West who’s name just will not stick in my brain, but I am just too tired to go for another late night out so it’s toasted sandwiches and a nice chicken fettucine from room service at Quay West. Both very good. A movie as I journal and argue with the internet about blog photo uploads … we opt for The Ugly Truth which is a bit of a laugh.. though we are a bit surprised at how much explicit sexual discussion Hollywood allows these days.. not offended by any means, just noting that it’s such a contrast to only a few years ago.