Hippie Living in the South Wedge: Kia Ora! Waitomo & Rotorua

Waitomo/Rotorua Weather: rainy, with breaks of sunshine, high 60's to mid 70's

Today we drove to Waitomo to see the glowworm caves. It was pretty cool. They looked like a bunch of LED lights on the roof of the cave. Unfortunately pictures were not allowed inside of the cave, so I had to steal some from the website so that you could get an idea of what was going on.

Entrance to the caves

Glowworms on the ceiling of the cave

Lines they put out for food

Pretty scenery outside of the caves

Gift shop New Zealand wildlife puppets

After the caves we took a short hike to a look out. We saw some nice views of the countryside outside of the caves.

NZ stairs to get over electrified fences

View at the top of our little walk

NZ foliage

We then ate some meat pies at a diner named Ronnie's

NZ meatpie lunch

We almost went to see kiwi's in Otorohanga, but $17 to see an ugly bird seemed a bit unnecessary. Hopefully we'll get to see some before we leave New Zealand.

Kiwi statues

Peter made me drive to Rotorura. He felt it was time for me to drive on the left side of the road. I'm pretty sure he felt this way because he was sick of my laughing at him every time he turned on his windshield wipers instead of his turn signal. I did okay... even if I did drive a little close to the left shoulder (Peter was not a fan of that). And, yes, I did turn on my wipers instead of my turn signal at times! However, in the end I needed to turn on those wipers as we approached Rotorura because it began to rain. No, not just rain, but POUR! I could barely see the road!

Eventually I got us safely to our destination. We settled in a bit & then prepared to attend the Maori Hangi. There we learned about the Maori culture, saw a bunch of demonstrations & heard lots of songs. (Lesson of the day: "Kia Ora" is Maori for "Hello") We then watched them take our food out of the ground. They use tea tree to cook/steam the meat, veggies & stuffing... unfortunately both Peter & I do not enjoy the flavor of tea tree. THe veggies & stuffing really absorbed the flavor & I actually found it quite difficult to eat. We shared a bottle of New Zealand Savignon Blanc and then enjoyed some pavlova for dessert.