A Glow Worm Wonderland

We picked up our awesome 2007 Mitsubishi campavan (that's what they call them here) just outside Auckland and went for a quick grocery stop to stock up and then headed north to the beautiful northland - bay of islands.  Our goal was to get up to a marina at a town called Tutukaka to go on a dive trip the next morning. 

On the way up we stopped at some caves called Waipu caves.  They are a DOC (Department of Conservation) trail (aka track) so are thus free.  Syd and I thought this was the best free activity as it was a rustic cave, virtually untouched, oh and the best part is that we had the cave all to ourselves!  We wore our head torches and water sandals (or jandals as they call them here) and trekked into the darkness.  The water in the cave was so clear and clean, and the stalactites looked like smooth mud.  It was weird when you touched them because it looked like wet mud, but they were actually hard and smooth.  So neat! 

We rounded a corner to the left and I told Syd to turn his torch off.  We looked up and there was a trail of lights on the ceiling, kind of like a wide line leading the way.  The light given off by this strange phenomenon was of an iridescent blue.  They were NZ's infamous glowworms! We followed the train that they set out for us and came to a large cathedral sized cavern where they were all over the ceiling.  It looked like we were looking at a night sky, and we felt like we were in our own personal glowworm wonderland!

After that, we made the 2 hour trek to Tutukaka and viewed some great hills and seascapes on the way. 

We camped for free in the marina at a  parking spot (picnic area) right on the bay.  Our first camping meal experience of stirfry on the campstove was very successful and tasty too!

Observations:

Weather has been really great here. Temperate with sun and cloud and around 23C.  The weather reports consistently say that the weather is fine, just fine.  We find it quite humourous.

Driving in Auckland is so cool.   One minute you are next to rolling hills and farms (with heaps of sheep!), the next minute you are driving up a mountain range and overlooking a gorge or the amazing coastlines.  The trees here are very tall and of various varieties - from pine trees to weird deciduous trees that are all branch until some vegetation at the end of each branch, to palm trees, and exotic ferns that look like palm trees!

There are generally only two speed limits - 50 and 100 km/hr.  90% of the turns have a suggested speed limit on them (i.e. 65Km, which makes Syd slow down to oh, about 80!).

Syd's deep thought:  Petrol (they use the brit term here rather than gas/fuel) prices are $1.48/litre, roughly $1.05/litre Canadian.  Regular is actually equivalent to medium/premium back home with an octane level of 91.  Oddly, diesel is much cheaper here...1.04 NZ/litre (40% less than petrol).