After a long flight to New Zealand made even longer by the electrical storms passing over Sydney and delaying all the flights, I made it into the Auckland airport around 11:30 at night. I was a bit wiped out and headed straight to the hotel to crash. I had an 8:00 AM pickup for the morning city tour and I wanted to get some sleep first. The hotel is a very big, very modern place that is part of a huge casino complex and the highest freestanding tower in the Southern hemisphere.

I got my bus in the morning and off we went to explore Auckland. It is a beautiful city, right on the water with lots of shipping traffic and a nice waterfront. We toured around as the driver explained that we were in a very active volcanic area. He pointed to a large hill a few miles away and explained that was the newest hill in the area having been formed by a volcanic eruption around 500 years ago. Then he drove us over a bridge that when built was only two lanes wide and quickly became too small to accommodate traffic so a couple young Japanese engineers designed a way to attach two more lanes to the outside without additional supports and they call it the "Nippon Clip-On" bridge. We also went up to see the caldera of an older volcano and visit a memorial at the top of the mountain next to the caldera, it had quite a view of the city which let me get some nice pictures. From there we went down to a little neighborhood that reminded me of Palo Alto, lots of little coffee shops, restaurants and smell boutique stores. We stopped there for 45 minutes which gave me time to get a starbucks coffee and buy some gifts.  From there it was off on a tour of the college area which took us by a park that was having the lantern festival, a part of the Chinese New Years celebrations. It was very beautiful. Out last stop on the tour was at an arctic exhibit and aquarium that features a very large colony of penguins from the arctic. There was a little ride through the penguin area where they generate 20 tons of snow a day. It was cool seeing the penguins get fed and play around in the water, amazing how graceful they are underwater and how playful they can be. There were even a number of them tending to their eggs. After that the bus dropped us off at our hotels and I took the opportunity to take a nap.

I got up a few hours later and went for a walk around the downtown. As I left the hotel I looked up in time to see a bungee jumper leaping off the top of the tower. It was strange, they leap off then are suspended by the cord about 15 feet down, they hang there for a minute then the rope drops them and they fall then catch and bounce back up before stabilizing and getting lowered to the landing platform. I decided that I would probably skip that activity this time around, maybe next time. I was happy walking around the downtown and checking out the different stores. It was pretty much like any other city, lots of construction and roadwork, lots of traffic, nothing special. I did find a good Chinese dim sun restaurant for lunch and got a really good meal. Finally I headed back to the hotel and decided to try my luck in the casino. I should have saved my time and money as I lost at both Blackjack and Caribbean Stud Poker, in fact I didn’t win a single hand of stud and only one of blackjack. I guess my luck was just not with me today. I decided to take a walk and find a place to kick back. I finally found a small place with a few people around and relaxed and drank water, yes water. I decided I would not be drinking in New Zealand and the entire time I was there I only had water, tea and juice. And no I was not feeling sick.

The next day I had an even earlier pickup at 7:10 AM. When we got on the bus they took us to the travel office where we changed busses to a huge double decker tour bus. I was surprised of the size since there were only about 14 of us on the tour. They gave us an itinerary and I found out the tour went until 8:30 PM, 13+ hours and over 600 kilometers of driving. It was going to be a long day. As we got going we were served a light breakfast of coffee or tea and some biscuits. I promptly dozed off which was a good thing ad the ride was going to be over 2 hours before the first stop. Scenery was interesting but not amazing so there really wasn’t much to keep me awake. The first stop was at the glow worm cave. This is a cave complex that was discovered about 110 years ago. You enter to the usual stalagmites and stalactites and dripping water. The water kept finding me where ever I went, the guide said it was good luck, if that was true I might have to try the casino again.  In the cave there is a colony of glow worms that drop sticky threads from the roof of the cave then use their light to attract flying insects that are brought into the cave with the flowing water, trap then on the threads and have a meal. After a short tour of the cave they put you in a boat and take you slowly through the main cave where there are hundreds of thousands of the glow worms on the ceiling. It is like looking at a very bright version of the Milky Way. Some worms are brighter than others and they are situated in a way that you can make out constellations. It was pretty impressive but all too soon it was over and we were getting back on the bus for another long drive. This time they served a hot lunch which was OK. I popped in my headphones and listened to a little music along the way.

The next stop of the day was at a place called the Agrodome. This is a farm tour that takes you around the farm behind a tractor. You go to a paddy with lots of sheep and ostrich and you can feed them. I guess they are used to this as they start coming over as soon as the tractor stops and they gang up on everyone trying to get some food. Also nearby is a large pen with deer and a huge buck with a massive set of antlers. People were also feeding them. From there they go past some huge cows that are raised for beef and finish with a sheep shearing demonstration. Finally you are led over to the gift store when you watch them operate a 100 year old carding machine, this combs the wool and gets it ready for spinning. Of course you are encouraged to buy one of the many wool products that they are selling in the store. I declined to buy anything and got back on the bus. Our next stop was a mere 15 minutes away at a small place that raised Rainbow trout and had a selection of native plants and animals. We got to see some huge rainbow trout that rivaled the kink salmon I had seen in Alaska. We also got to view many of the native birds and plants including the Silver Fern, they symbol of New Zealand. The final stop on the this tour, and the highlight, was the Kiwi house. No we did not see kiwi fruit, we got to view the Kiwi bird which is endangered because it is hunted by non-native species introduced by the British. This is a nocturnal flightless bird so the room was quite dark but there were two of them poking through the foliage looking for food. Unfortunately we could not take pictures because of their sensitivity to light so I didn’t get any pics of them. After the Kiwi house you are led into the gift shop there they had all manner of things. I avoided the temptation and headed out to the bus.

From there we drove to the town of Rotorua which is in a very active volcanic region. The town has many hot springs and sections of the parks are fenced off and you can see steam rising from volcanic vents. You can also smell the sulphur in the air as you enter the town. We were told the town history and shown some of the big spas that use the natural hot springs for baths and mud treatment. It would have been nice to stay there a day or two and relax but that wasn’t in the cards. Our final stop of the day was a Maori arts and crafts center that part of the natural spring geysers. The local guide took us on a walk past a number of steaming vents and past a huge pit of boiling mud. The smell was pretty strong and it was warm, the mud being heated to over 212 degrees. As we past that we got a look at the Pohutu Geyser, New Zealand’s equivalent to Old Faithful, though not as predictable. It was erupting as we got there, so we watched it spew steam and boiling water about 40 feet in the air. The whole area was yellow with sulfur deposits and smelled pretty strongly of rotten eggs. There was a stream running near the geyser and the guide was saying that you could catch trout in the center of the stream then move them a couple feel closer to the side and cook them, talk about fast food. We headed back and were shown a traditional Maori village that had been hand carved.  It was quite nice and I did get some good pictures of it.  That is where they finished the town, thought they did point us to the gift shop if we were interested. This time I was and headed in to look around. I ended up buying a Maori mask to hand on the wall and a couple smaller things as gifts for friends.

Finally it was back aboard the bus for the long drive back to Auckland. It took better than 3 hours with a short break for a few people who were not feeling well before we got back at about 8:40. I headed to the same Chinese place that I had lunch at and got some nice dinner. It wasn’t crowded and I got chatting to the waitress who was from Xi’an China, near Beijing. We talked for about 20 minutes then I took off to stretch my legs before heading back to the hotel. I had an even earlier morning the next day as I needed to leave for the airport at 6:00 AM

The city of Auckland

Auckland from the hill with the caldera

Arctic Penguins

Sheep Shearing

The Geyser erupting

Boiling mud pit

Sulphur covered rocks near the geyser