Journey Through Middle Earth
Our Kiwi friends, Sean and Kirsty, dropped us off near the airport at the Jucy rental company to pick up our new home for the next 10 days. We got our bright purple and green campervan, which was really a converted Toyota Estima Mini-Van, and went straight to the grocery store to stock up on supplies. After grabbing the essentials we put Auckland in the rearview mirror as we headed west towards the Corromandel Peninsula. At the beginning I had to constantly remind myself to stick to the left hand side of the road and to always look right first when pulling out. As easy as it sounds, it’s actually fairly confusing when, instead of traffic lights, most intersections are divided my massive roundabouts.
As we got further from Auckland, the road became a windy mess through pastures filled with fluffy sheep and massive cows. Our first destination was Cathedral Cove which is a beautiful white sand beach overshadowed by a massive stone arch, shaped very much like the inside of a cathedral. We got down to the beach as the sun was dipping behind the seaside cliffs, so after taking in the incredible views we made the hike back to the car before it got to cold. We drove to our 1st campground and cooked dinner in the back of the van, watching the sunset behind the mountains to the west.
The following day, we woke early to head towards Waitomo for some cave tubing. We arrived to the tour a bit early, so we did a bit of exploring on our own to kill time. We found a hike that took us through a few small caves and big forests of ferns and pine trees. After our little hike, we went back to the start of the tour to get fitted for our helmets, headlamps, and wetsuits. IT SUCKED! The wetsuits were still wet from the previous tour, so we had to squeeze into the terrible things and sit in them while the guides went over all the ways to avoid killing ourselves and through the drive to the caves. Once in the cave, we did a short hike and a quick float to a small waterfall. We had to jump over it, landing on our butts in the middle of the tube. It was fun watching everyone nervously jumping backwards into the abyss, when really it was only like a three foot fall. Once everyone in the group cleared the jump, we headed for some narrower caves at which point we were told to turn our headlamps off.
Instantly, the cave went pitch black until we all looked up and saw what seemed like hundreds of stars on the roof of the cave. These stars were really glow-worms, dotting the cave ceilings with their bioluminescent poop. That’s right, these worms’ poo glows in the dark and looks quite magical. It was amazing drifting through the caves under what looked like a perfect night’s sky. After a bit more floating, we came to another waterfall, this one a bit bigger. After taking the plunge, we found ourselves under another sky full of glow-worm stars and I found myself drifting off into thoughts of just how amazing nature is. When we finally made it out of the dark, wet, and cold caves we were escorted back to the basecamp for some hot tomato soup to thaw out and get back on the road.