We were up and about early, for us, this morning to check out and be at the caves, ready for our expedition to see glowworms. Wow, what an amazing experience. We spent almost an hour in the caves, exiting out by boat. Unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed so no photos were taken. The sheer magnificence of the cave system was impressive but seeing glow worms was awe inspiring. Our guide was very friendly and professional. Like a lot of attractions in the north Island, they are run by local Maori families who have invested interest in the experience being successful.
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| Outside the Glowworms caves |
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| Glow worm caves at Waitomo |
After the Glowworms we took a road to Te Anga where we stopped at a natural stone bridge at Mangapohue. It is believed that steep walls of the gorge were once part a large cave carved by a underground river, eventually the roof collapsed except for current span of stone and earth forming a bridge. It is magnificent and photos can’t do it justice.
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| Stone bridge |
The next stop was the Marokopa Falls. After a 10 minute walk, we were rewarded by a fantastic sight.
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| The falls |
The volume of water running over the 40 metre falls was significant. Again, we recommend a visit if are in the area. The road to Te Anga is windy and scenic with forests, lush rolling hills and sheer drops to valleys below. The road is sign posted for 100kph most of the way but in reality is probably safe for 50-80kph on most of the road. You can go faster if you like flying into valleys below or running into one many tourists travelling on the road.
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| Road to Te Anga |
We arrived back in Waitomo after 1pm and stopped for lunch before travelling onto Hamilton. The trip took a little over an hour, and as usual the scenery was pleasant with rolling lush hills, trees, corn fields and sheep pastures.
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| Road to Hamilton |
Our first view of Hamilton was a magnificent church (temple) on a rise devoted to the “Church of Later Day Saints”. A quick google shows Hamilton has many churches, certainly more than we would have expected. The city scape we passed through didn’t impress us much, it seemed slightly run down and had big city feel. It surprised us that Hamilton is considered New Zealand’s most beautiful large city in New Zealand! After checking in at the Novotel Hotel we went for an explore. The city centre is what you would expect but after brief drive we saw some of the suburbs which seem nice to the casual review. The city does have some world class botanical gardens that we hope to visit tomorrow.
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| Novotel Hamilton |
We finished the day having a pleasant dinner at a Italian restaurant across the road from the hotel.
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