25th-27th October 2008

3 Day road trip. Check out the maps for a brief overview of the itinerary.

Itinerary: Auckland -> Hamilton -> Waitomo Caves -> New Plymouth -> Auckland

Day 01

We start off the day with a 1.5 hours drive to Hamilton, quite a big town so to speak. Places to visit there? The famous Hamilton Gardens. What else man.. I also don’t know. This trip started badly; we forgot the memory card for both the cameras! We realised that when we reach Hamilton. What the hell man.... worst possible shit to happen. So we had to rely on the good old Panasonic with an SD card from our phone. Shit does happen. Anyway, that aside, Hamilton Gardens is well worth the stop. The actual garden is huge but we prefer the smaller collection of different garden styles – from Japanese to Chinese, Indian, American and Italian. Check out the photos yeah..

Japanese Garden of Contemplation

American Garden

Indian Garden

Chinese Garden

American Modernist Garden

Next up was the Bridal Veil Falls. It is a national park en route Waitomo Caves. As its name suggests, it does look like a bride’s veil; from the back view of course. It’s about 47 metres high (About HDB 16 storeys high) I think and it looks amazing. The splashing water droplets coupled with the sun shining created a small arc of rainbow at the bottom of the falls. So nice man! As we continue our journey to Waitomo, we passed by a motel listed by Lonely Planet as one of the most unusual ones in the world. Basically, you can choose which lodge you want to stay in, a Hobbit’s Lodge, a Ship, a Plane and a Train. Mind you, these are all the real stuff. Check out the pictures. http://www.waitomo.org.nz/Accommodation-Woodlyn-Park.htm

We ended our drive for the day in Waitomo Caves and stayed overnight at Kiwi Paka Backpackers house. They have 1 other hostel at Rotorua, and that was crap too. Well, the environment is alright, just that the receptionists are quite racist towards Chinese we thought. And we had to pay $10 deposit for the cutlery and plates. WTF? This is the first I stayed at a hostel and I have to pay that! Backpackers lodge is usually based on trust and respect; apparently this one doesn’t have the soul of a backpackers lodge. Anyway, here is their website : http://www.kiwipaka-yha.co.nz/waitomo/waitomo.html

Day 02

Today is meant for the Black Water Rafting tour at the world famous Waitomo Glowworm Caves. A brief introduction on Waitomo –

“Waitomo is a Maori word made up of two parts. 'Wai' which translates as water and 'tomo' which means entrance or hole. Waitomo can be translated as the 'stream which flows into the hole in the ground'.”

It consists of underground limestone formations formed through millions of years. An underground stream runs through the caves and in the cave itself, there are waterfalls. And of course, the ceiling is littered with small ‘light bulbs’ – the glowworms. We decided to go on a tour with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. Serious, that’s their real name. http://www.waitomo.com/caving-adventure.aspx That is the tour we took, $185 each after discount.

Most of the caves are not open to public, so to see most of the caves and glowworms, you got to go on the tours. We did abseiling 37 metres into the cave, climbed waterfalls, tubing (also known as black water rafting), and flying fox – all within the cave. Nearing the end of the tour, we had to choose between 2 paths to head out; one is the easy path, we took the tough one and man it’s a killer. We had to climb up a waterfall and go against the current. Once you fall, that’s it man. Overall it is an amazing tour, but the water is freezing, ice cold.

After the fun-filled adventure, we continue our drive to New Plymouth and visit the picturesque Mount Taranaki. We stopped by at some scenic lookouts such as the Elephant Rock and Three Sisters. Nothing much, just rocks and broken headlands. Well, it does look like an elephant but only from certain angles. When we head out to the rocks, it was low tide. After taking all the silly photos, it was bloody high tide man! We have to take off our shoes and walk through the water just to get back to the car. Damn it man. Anyway, by the time we arrived at New Plymouth, it was night time. We stayed at Sunflower Lodge – a decent place but slightly overpriced. http://www.sunflowerlodge.co.nz/

Day 03

The last day was meant for exploring New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki.

“Ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon”.

This is what this city is known for. The snow mountain and the sea is so near that you can do those 2 activities in a single day. How amazing is that? I wonder if there is any other place in the world you can do that. They have an amazing website - http://www.taranaki.co.nz/

Check that out. Anyway, it is an active volcano and god knows when they will erupt the next time. This volcano has erupted and collapsed 5 times in the past and each of the eruptions was so strong that the entire mountain is blown to bits. Cool eh? They have underground seismic detectors and they claimed it will give them weeks, if not months of advance warning in case this sleeping giant decides to wake up. We drove up the snow mountain and the snow is clearing fast. Ski season has ended but the car park still has snow! So excited to finally feel snow again. Lol.

Check out this picture. The cloud started with a small blob at the summit of the mountain and slowly, it grew... bigger and bigger until it covered most of the top. The strange thing is the cloud just keeps swirling round and round the mountain; it doesn’t move away! WTH is that man. But it really is a sight to behold. Check out the panoramic view of the mountain. All the photos in this trip is taken using my old junk Panasonic camera. Forgive the poor quality. That panoramic is joined and touched up with Photoshop so it looks decent.

After the great mountain, it is time to head on back to Auckland. It is a long long drive again. To think few weeks ago we were still contemplating whether to go to Mount Taranaki; this is a must visit for everyone. We miss Mt. Taranaki.....