The day really started early as I had to leave the house to catch my bus to leave for Waitomo Caves and Rotoura around 7:00 am. Well I get there and they tell me that I am the only one who has booked a tour with them today, but not to worry their sister company has an upgraded tour which takes us to a farm to see sheep shearing at a farm called Agrodome near Rotoura as well as the other two places and has meals airplane style on board the bus. Happy with the free upgrade I sat in the bus to begin our 3 hrs journey through the country land outside Auckland. My luck of good weather had finally ran out and it was bitterly cold, yes I said COLD, all of you who have known me over the years that I never say I am cold, but trust me from my tushi to my shaved head everything was frozen :-).
First stop was the Waitomo caves. The Waitomo Glowworm Cave was explored in 1887 by local Maori Chief Tane Tinorau accompanied by an English Surveyor Fred Mace. On their raft of flax stems and with candles as their only lighting, they floated into the cave where the stream goes underground. As they entered the caves, their first discovery was the Glowworm with
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its myriad of tiny bright lights dotting the cave ceiling. This was an amazing discovery as till today hundreds of visitors like (me) are excited to see such a miracle down under (literally). Unfortunately the cave caught fire last year and most of it’s outside surroundings the café, visitors center and shops were burned down, so the owners since then have not allowed to take any pictures inside the cave or make any video, so my only memories are some postcards that I bought and the picture taken outside (see on the left the slide show). Interestingly enough the caves were very warm, outside temp 6 C inside temp 15 C (all year long), so most of my group were not looking forward to the trip to the farm.
It took us about 1.5 hrs from the caves to get to Argodome Farm, where a sheep was to be sheared for us paid visitors. With rain coming down hard and wind blowing we made our quick round around the farm feeding some sheep, deers and ostriches. Nah I didn’t bother feeding and was very happy sitting in my seat in the tractor buggy. Next was the sheep shearing which was OK, as I was not too excited to see the poor chap lose it’s wool for us in this weather. After a quick pit stop to the shops we were off to the geysers. For the folks in the US who have visited Yellow Stone Park, Rotoura is similar but on a smaller scale, but what you get here is also history on the Maori culture, which you don’t at Yellow Stone.
So let’s step back in time to learn a bit about the Maoris, before I tell you about my experience at the Geysers. Maoris were the first inhabitants of New Zealand, arriving on the islands in about 1000. Maori oral history maintains that the Maoris came to the island in seven canoes from other parts of Polynesia. They came from Islands of Fiji to all the way from Hawaii. The reason they left on canoes to explore new land was the over population of their islands and inter-fighting among the tribes. All in all there are 11 main tribes of the Maori people, but today in New Zealand there are 92 sub-tribes which eventually are tied with the 11 main tribes. If you like to read more on Maori culture this is a good site.
Now that you know as much as I do, Sally our Maori guide took us around the place and showed how the Maori lived, ate and hunted when they first landed on the island. They like us Asian people loved big families, loads of kids (anywhere from 10-14) per family. They mostly ate fish and fruits, as there were no wild animals on the island till the Dutch and British arrived. Walking through different parts of the park we eventually reached the geysers. Our luck did get better as the rain stopped and we were greeted by erupting geysers (only erupt every 2 hrs), so timing was perfect. If you have never been to a geyser before it smells like rotten eggs (my 10C buddies, it reminded me of all the stink bombs we broke in Mian Aslam’s class in school). I enjoyed sitting on the hot rocks to warm up a bit and just watch the beautiful site. Even though there was some stink around but it all felt warm after the cold day we had experienced. As the sun was setting, we got the signal from our tour guide that we had to head back to Auckland. Boarding the bus I just thought of the day I had and what amazing things lie outside the boundaries we live in. Got to see the most gorgeous sunset on the way back and the bus driver told us that it was going to be a clear day in Auckland the next day. I slept most of the trip back on the bus and arrived at around 7:30 pm in Auckland. Neeraj picked me up and I got home to eat the most amazing lamb curry his wife had cooked. You can’t leave New Zealand without eating the lamb here. Tomorrow I am off to Sydney and hopefully will have good time there as well.
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