Wiatomo caves and beyond

Karinya
Tim And Vicki Schofield, Captain Cal 7 and Jess 4
Sun 18 Mar 2012 21:37

So we travelled South and landed up at the “world” famous Waitomo caves. Yes more caves and more Glow worms. The good thing is that we now know exactly what the glow worms are, their lifecycle and their culinary expertise. This however came at an exorbitant cost, but that is the price for such profound wisdom.

 

 

After this we travelled south to Rotorua the volcano area of NZ. Looking for a campsite we lucked out at the thermal springs and had a great day lounging in the natural hot springs. The following morning we headed for the geysers and the main thermal area. This geyser was discovered when a prisoner from the nearby prison was bathing in a hot spring and dropped his soap. This slid down a vent which cause a disturbance which sent up a 30 M geyser….he ran away and some entrepreneur saw the return on investment of a bar of soap a day for 100 tourists paying $50 each to see the elaborate bubble bath.

 

At the camp site we met some locals who go there for a hot swim after work, they had 2 kids and soon we were chatting to them. They invited us for a braai at their house the following evening.

The Kiwi’s are truly hospitable people and we had a fantastic night drinking eating and talking ……yes rugby. The following morning they offered to look after the kids while Vic and I did a grade 5 white water rapid trip. Apparently we went over the highest “commercially” available waterfall in the world. The problem we have encountered in our travels is every country claims “the largest, highest, fastest etc” I think they probably are but leave a small fact out like “these are the highest commercially available falls to raft , with a left hand bend, at exactly 5.5 M wide over 2.3m deep pool….in the world. Anyway it was great and nice for V and I to do something kidless.

 

 

Not nervous at all

 

 

Warm up rapid

 

 

Getting bigger

 

 

Going …..going

 

 

Gone

 

 

Ok we lost one

 

 

Happy we made it

 

 

After the falls we went with Sharyn and Clive (The NZ ers) to do an adventure for Callum

 

 

Jess and her new friend

 

 

. This was his xmas present from my uncle Walter and Mildred. He had looked at tons of things and eventually settled for the SWOOP. This is a free fall bungee style for 20M then it swoops into a swing. Quite a scary thing to do for a 9 year old, but Cal is an adrenalin junkie.

 

 

 

Ok he also went on a jet boat, in this pic he is saying “is that the best you got”

 

 

 

After this we headed South to Wellington to catch the ferry to the South island. Unfortunately we did not have much time and Wellington has an unreal museum which you could easily spend a day in touring. We had 2 hours and did a few of the high lights.

 

 

This is me taking a stand against banning the springboks tour to NZ in the 80’s

 

South Island next