From Taupo to Auckland

At the Christmas day we had already to continue our journey further to the north. We stayed for one night in Hamilton and visited the Waitomo cave which is nearby. Inside the Waitomo cave there are the glow-worms, an endemic Fungus Gnat species which only exists here in New Zealand. They hang below the cave ceiling and are luminescent, glowing in the dark to attract flies. The tour inside the cave was nothing special, but when we saw thousands of the glowing glow-worms, it was something new and special to us. It was like viewing to the stars on a clear night, looks like a whole galaxy, really impressive. Unfortunately it was not allowed to take any pictures. Furthermore I booked a tour for the Hobbiton near Matamata. The place Hobbiton was the film location for the movie The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for the Hobbit village scenes. The area is indeed beautiful, it was interesting to see how they shape the settings, for me very impressive to see behind the scenes.

During the Christmas day Hamilton was quite empty, almost all shops were close, just a couple of Asia restaurant were open. From Hamilton we drove further north, our destination was Whangarei and we stayed here for three nights. We started day trips from here to the bays at Tutukaka, made a boat trip from Paihia to Russel and to the Bay of Islands and drove to the most northern point of the North Island, to Cape Reinga. We noticed that it´s holiday season now in New Zealand, there were some traffic jams, quite a lot of cars on the streets. The town Russell was the first capital of New Zealand, here you can see some nice old historical wooden houses, very beautiful. Also here there were a lot of people having holiday, quite a lot of boats around the Bay of Islands. The people are making beach holiday on some of the beautiful beaches around this area. At Cape Reinga you can see how the Tasman See meets the Pacific Ocean, strong currents clashes together. There you can also have some nice walks, we only did a short walk down to the beach. On the way back we went to see the sand dunes and to try sand surfing. It was a great fun but also very exhausting. You can rent a Styrofoam surf board, walk up the dune, lay down on the board and surf down the dune, really funny. This time the weather was good to us, we had sunshine days with a temperature of 25°C during daytime.

Our last trip from Whangarei was to Auckland. Auckland is our final destination in New Zealand. We will stay here for three nights including New Year and then leaving for the next continent, to South America, to be more precise to Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand is a multi-cultural city, you see people from all over the World, lots of Asian people live here. We like this city, it doesn’t feel like a big city, there are parks everywhere, it is surrounded by the sea and you can do a lot of activities around this city, quite nice here.

Well, for us it´s time to say goodbye to New Zealand and to the year 2016. We wish you all a Happy New Year 2017, may the new year be good to us. Enjoy your New Year’s Eve with your families and friends. We will keep you updated from Argentina and from the New Year 2017.

Yours

Mery & Dennis