Upon leaving Auckland, the "big city" I immediately found the New Zealand I had envisioned. So green. So many greens! Rolling hills and beautiful farmland.
We rented a car for this journey as there really doesn't seem to be great transportation/bus systems in the North Island. We headed to the Waitomo area. Here we took a little metal boat through some cave systems and saw limestone stactalytes and -joy- glowworms!! The commentary was very dry and the ride very short, but seeing those glowing little green bugs made it worthwhile. Later during our time here we "black water" rafted, which essentially is river tubing though a different cave system. This involved a lot of climbing (spelunking seems to be a north american term) though caves dragging our tube behind, and some floating through tunnels, we also jumped backwards off of the edge of a couple underground waterfalls. It sounds much more dramatic than it actually was, and this was. Definitely my favourite part of the trip so far! Underground we also saw some more glow worms, yay! And our very engaging guide described their true nature... "Canablistic Maggots with shiny (poop) who shag themselves to death." It's ok, I still like them.
While we were in this area, we went to Otorohanaga to do the "kiwi watch" tour. We sat in a hide in a conservation area for a few hours, and caught glimpses of three different ones. Before we went Nathan and I were making guesses about what they will sound like, you should google it, their call is not what I would expect. They are hilarious looking birds, if you can call them that, with really unique features. Their nostrils are on the end of their beak, and so, when they keep sticking their beak underground looking for bugs, they make funny snuffling noises because they have to blow the mud out of their nose. My favourite feature is the stubby little wing that is still where they will put their giant beak when they go to sleep. We were lucky to be paired up with a very enthusiastic teacher from the area when we went, so in all of the down time between kiwi sitings, we compared notes on the schooling systems, and made some interesting observations. She basically said that her district needs more teachers, and if we wanted to, we could probably have jobs. It's an interesting thought, I love it here
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