Waitomo, NZ - Glow Worms

Waitomo today!
We arrived around noon, and grabbed some tickets to the glow worm caves. The first available spot on a tour was at 2pm. All good. We went back around the corner to the Huhu Cafe. And, it was actually very good. Much better than hanging out at the half cafe near the ticket booth waiting for our tour outside.

So, lunch- delicious.
Next, tour in the caves!
Our group was huge, but our guide was awesome. She took us down many dark and damp steps down into the limestone caves. The caves are millions of years old, stalagmites and stalactites forming one centimeter every hundred years as the water slowly drips down. Our guide also pointed out some of the “art” around the cave walls.

Further into the cave, deeper and darker, we were able to see the glow worms! Well, they’re actually maggots in their larvae stage. They’re super cool! We turned all the lights off in the cave, and it was beautiful. The glow worms actually look like stars up there. But, the super incredible part was seeing their string webs hanging down. Our guide gave us a quick science lesson on the worms and their webs.

Finally, down to the boat! Here’s Ryan’s review:
 “Uh, it was... My jaw was open the entire time! I felt like an idiot when I went through because my mouth was so open, and I couldn’t stop looking up.”

We have done quite a bit of driving this trip. The landscape is beautiful around the country: snow-capped mountains, grassy rolling hills, tropical trees, rock cliffs, blue lakes and farmland. The farmland has its own beauty to it. It’s hard to go far without seeing cow or sheep. So, that said, this was my view for the majority of our travels.

Oh! And then we stopped at two breweries in Hamilton on our way up to our next place in Auckland.

Stop #1 Brewaucracy
Ryan wanted to go simply for the name. He claims it’s a really good name. Turns out you can’t technically buy beer there. They only do tasters and fill growlers. But, we had a handful of tasters, and loved the lady at the bar. It was a good stop!

Stop #2 Good George Brewing Co.
Quality place! We really liked this one. It always goes up in my book when they have food. We were familiar with the name since this is the places that brews for Hobbiton. They have good beer, possibly the best in the country. And, we ordered a taco platter- so tasty!

Taupo, NZ - Huka Falls

We took a bit of a road trip today to Taupo which is just over an hour from Rotoura. We went on a beautiful hike from Spa Thermal Park to Huka Falls. It was a beautiful day for it! Although only 50 ish, the sun was shining, and we were actually warm walking the trail. It was wonderful.

Huka Falls turned out to be more like rapids, but there was a small waterfall at the end. There’s a lot of power in that water. Actually, enough to power 15% of New Zealand. Also, that reminds me, on the drive to Taupo, we saw a nuclear reactor! It was safely and fully function in the middle of farmland. It was very cool. 

After our 2 hour hike, we headed to Trout Brewing Company for lunch in Taupo. It’s so German! The stout was decent and the pizza was tasty. It was kind of odd with an apricot sauce, but it grew on us. 

We learned that the don’t actually serve trout. In fact, in NZ restaurants can’t serve trout, but if you catch your own, this place will cook it for you. 

We head down to Lake Taupo to walk the shore a bit and see the snow capped mountains before heading back to Roroura. It’s another beautiful view. 

Rotoura, NZ - Te Puia

We kicked off the day with breakfast at Fat Dog Cafe. It was delicious, and I highly recommend their dairy free smoothie. The pancakes were good, too.

For today’s main event, we headed over to Te Puia to learn more about the Maori culture. We had been looking forward to visiting one of the Maori villages and learning more history of the island. Te Puia was recommended to us by the people we’re renting the house from; we figured they probably have a good idea of the area’s attractions. They were spot on. Oh, I almost forgot! By chance, Fat Dog offers a 10% discount coupon to Te Puia, so that was awesome luck.

Te Puia is The New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute. It opened in 1963 in Rotorua, New Zealand due to the impending threat of the loss of traditional Māori arts. We were able to walk through the institute and see students working on new carving and weaving. And, outside on the grounds, were able to see some traditional-style buildings and canoes. The details in the carvings were incredible, even in their biggest buildings, like the meeting hall, every piece that held it up was intricate. 

This building was for storage, especially food. 

We had a couple hours to explore the nature paths before the ceremony, which seemed like a lot until we started walking. The trails lead through an area of high geothermal activity, so we were able to see an abundance of hot springs and mud pools. 

Rotoura is famous for all the geothermal activity. We were able to view the pools closer here than we had yet and the nature around the trails was beautiful, but it wasn’t anything new. Well, that was until we arrived at the geyser. In one area, there are geysers that erupt a couple times an hour. We rounded a corner in the path, had enough time to realize people were sitting around waiting for the eruption, and right on cue, it erupted! 

Pohutu is the largest active geyser in the souther hemisphere. It erupts once or twice every hour and shoots as high as 30 meters. It has a Maori name, translated it means “big splash”. Because of its size and regularity, it’s the best know geyser in Te Puia. We were also able to see Te Tuhu, also know as Prince of Whales Feathers, because it’s the same shape as the feathers of the coat of arms. Te Tuhu often erupts before and after Pohuto. 

Rotoura, NZ - Redwoods

We had a lazy morning today- late breakfast, laundry, British game shows and HGTV. I know, sounds silly, but this is the first day since arrive that we didn’t wake up with somewhere that we needed to be, so we took advantage of it. Anyway, it was only a half day of laying around. We went to a great spot for lunch. I can’t remember the name of it..but the food was great, and Ryan liked the beer.

Then, for today’s highlight: the Redwood forest!

They have a walkway up in the trees that you can climb up and look around.  The view was pretty incredible. And, it was really fun to walk around the bridges. It was about a half kilometer loop, with bridged linking up the platforms around the trees. All the suspension was held up by slings, that in no way were harmful to the trees. The whole system was engineered by some Germans who were actually building an expansion as we were walking around! It’s due to open on Sunday.

We learned that these trees are actually the same as the California Redwoods! They’ve only been growing since 1901, so they’re not nearly as big though. Due to the distance from the equator, our latitude, it’s a very similar climate, and the trees love it! There’s also an abundance of ferns that grow in the area making beautiful canopies below the sequoia branches.

It’s definitely safe to say we enjoyed our trip through the treetops! 

Hobbiton, Middle Earth

On the way from Coromandel to Rotoura, we stopped off in Middle Earth at the movie set for Hobbiton featured in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Truly, it’s only a few minutes outside Matamata, but it actually does feel like you’re transported to the Shire. It helps that our tour guide was fantastic, and our tour group had actual fans!

Ryan was excited that so much of the focus was on the movies. Our guide pointed out the paths of actual scenes, knew how many second shots were on film, shared some of the camera tricks and pointed out Peter Jackson’s extreme attention to the detail of the set.

Outside The Green Dragon

The Mill

Gardens were adorable, even in this season. 

Extra 5 hobbit holes built for accuracy in the Hobbit. 

Our new hobbit home! 

Overlooking Hobbiton with the tree that sealed the deal on this location. 

It was truly great fun being Hobbits for the day! 

Coromandel, NZ - Beach

It’s been a rainy stay on the peninsula, but that didn’t stop us!

We made a trip across to Hot Water Beach. It’s a unique beach on the Pacific. Hot springs run just under the surface of the beach in a few places making the sand toasty warm under your feet. This also means that even on a relatively cold and rainy day, if you dig a hole in the sand, you’ll have very warm water bubbling out of the hot spring. Sounds good, right? Count us in.

We hired a spade for a few dollars and started digging!

We arrived within the best digging time, two hours before and after low tide. Although not the only people there, it really wasn’t too busy. Remember, it is winter here, and rainy, so that draws less of a crowd than the warm, sunny months.

Successfully snug in our hot pool! 

We did brave a dip in the ocean. As expected, it was frigid and jumping back in our hot pool was delightful. It was also pleasant during all the rain that came through. Really, it’s a great spot to be on a rainy day. 

Part 2: Cathedral Cove

We finally went hiking! The loop took about 2 hours. Again, we had pretty good timing. The rain was spotty on our way out, plenty of sun and dryness to for pictures. 

On the way back, it poured. 

Wanaka, NZ - Breweries

Today’s Quest: Day trip up to Wanaka.

We wanted to see a bit more of the South Island than just the Queenstown area, so we headed north toward Wanaka. We made a couple stops on the way. Turns out that round trip, it’s enough time to listen to the first 5 Pink Floyd albums. Good travel tunes!

Stop 1: Arrowtown
We stopped in hopes of a hot breakfast and flat white #5. Success! We stopped at the Unwind Cafe, and it was just as cute as the quaint village that held it. The food was absolutely delicious! Another place that we’d strongly recommend, especially for the pancakes.

Stop 2: Cromwell
It’s pretty much in the valley of the mountains. There were dozens of vineyards that we drove though in the area. There’s a lot of fruit in Cromwell, in general. But that’s it. It was a super quick stop.

Stop 3: Wanaka
Ryan really wanted to hit up some breweries while in the country. They’re harder to find than you’d think, but Wanaka has a couple.
The first one we stopped at was connected to a toy museum. Really, you have to walk through the toy museum to the back of the shop to find the beer. Then, as you’re enjoying a brew, you can look out to the back of the property where they have old cars. I think the name was Wanaka Beerworks, but I’ll have to double check that. Unique location, but they were good for a flight of beer. Bonus: there was a dog!
The second stop had better beer. Rhyme & Reason Brewing. We had another flight best beer around thus far. Location would have been great in the warm months. They’ve got a big garage door on the front that was opened up to let the sun in, but it was only 4C outside.

After the back to back brewery stops, we figured we should find some lunch. So, we headed into the actual town and found Spreight’s. It wasn’t very good. Oh well. We were right on Lake Wanaka, so we went to find #thatWanakaTree. It was a tree. Great scenery though!

Stop 4: Roaring Meg
On the drive back to Queenstown, we stopped off to check out Roaring Meg. The river runs through the mountains along side the highway. It’s hard to see from the road, so we stopped. It was rather unremarkable.

Queenstown, NZ - Coronet Peak

This is it! The #1 reason we planned a few days in the South Island: skiing.

We packed up our gear and headed out to the mountain around 8:30am to be there right when it opened at nine. It was actually most of the same route we took to the hot pools the night before. But, you turn off a bit early and head up into the mountain.

It was incredible (and terrifying) driving up though the cloud cover to the top of the Southern Alps  where Coronet Peak is actually located. There are several stops on the way up to take photos and admire the view.

There are three ski parks in the area that are essentially run by the same company, so the ski pass is good for all the parks. So, we started the day thinking we would ski Coronet Peak for a while, then hop over to The Remarkables and ski that park, too. It didn’t take us long to realize that two parks in one day certainly wasn’t going to happen. (We forgot how exhausting skiing is.)

Coronet Peaks was incredible! We kicked it off on the Meadow Express runs, figuring we should warm up a bit. It’s been a couple months since we skied. Them we moved onto the real deal and took the Coronet Express straight to the top! Our first true run was down M1, a “gentle” back and fourth down the mountain. We eventually made it over to the Greengates Express by taking M1 to Million Dollar and merging with Greengates to get to the bottom.

Map Here >> https://vicomap-cdn.resorts-interactive.com/map/1077

Fun Fact: The trail rating is dependent on the mountain itself. So, the difficulty of “black diamonds” don’t match across ski parks. That said, a black diamond run at Bittersweet back home, is pretty much a beginner hill at Coronet Peak.

So, that said, we stayed on the intermediate (blue) trails all day and were PLENTY challenged on those. We made it a solid five hours (with a couple snack breaks) before our legs couldn’t take it any more. At that point, we weren’t sure we could successfully make it down the slopes. Oh, and Ryan dropped a pole off the lift. That’s how we knew it was surely time to call it a day.

Top of the lift 

Trail to ski- most looked like you could fall right off the edge

Another trail- stay to the right of the fence

Action shot! 

Queenstown, NZ - Ferg & Onsen

Well, it’s another rainy day here in Auckland.

We for a solid night sleep, and were ready to start the day at about 5:00am. We grabbed some breakfast at the hotel, repacked our bags, hopped the bus and returned the the airport. Security was quicker than expected, now we have a solid 1.5 hours before we board.

So, the flight was a bit delayed, but that’s no big deal since we don’t have any place to be until 5:00 this evening. Ryan had a window seat, and it was a seemingly usual flight (we’ve done a few lately). About an hour in, we could look out and see that we’d reached the South Island. It was incredible- ocean, mountains, sunny skies. The closer we got to Queenstown, the more breathtaking the view.

Everywhere we turn, it’s amazing. The mountains are constantly in view. We can’t get over it. And, to add to that - our apartment for the weekend is beautiful, and to Doug’s surprise, actually has the advertised view. Already, we are so excited to have made the extra trip down here. 

We did a lot of reading and planning for this trip, and all blogs about Queenstown said the same thing: Go to Fergburger. Well, knowing Ryan’s love for burgers, it made our must-do list as well.

Well, we went to Fergburger! It’s insanely busy, noisy, crowded. The line was constantly out the door. But, it was so good and totally lived up to the hype. The service was fast, too! We were expecting to wait at least 30 minutes, knowing sometimes it takes much longer. But, we had burgers in 15 flat! It helps that our timing was pretty awesome, too. Still- sweet as.

Ryan is already planning a return trip before we leave Queenstown. I’m good with that.

Sign: “In Ferg We Trust”

Moving past the food now.. we walked around town for a bit. It’s right on the edge of the lake, so it’s absolutely beautiful. Winter Fest has just begun, so it seemed extra lively for a Thursday afternoon. We stumbled upon a few spots of live music while wandering through shops. We’re feeling a bit more acquainted with the town now. 

For the last noteworthy event of the evening- we headed a bit north of Queenstown to Onsen Hot Pools. These are basically hot tubs fed by the natural hot springs in the area.  We scheduled months ago for the sunset hour. So glad we did! We started with a view of the mountains, and ended with the vivid night sky. We only snapped one picture, but you get the idea. 

Oh, and fun part- the only way to cool the water was turning on a pipe that poured ice cold water for, the ceiling. Otherwise, it was very relaxing!