New Zealand - North Island

After the seemingly slowest ferry in the world took us from Picton to Wellington, we made our way to the center, run some errands, do laundry, and explore the city a bit.

We also had the brilliant idea of leaving the city around 5pm and joining the rush hour traffic, which resulted in our left side mirror making acquaintance with another van. The other van had no damage and its driver wasn't really interested in us or the police, so we were lucky that only the mirror attachment was broken. After repairing the mirror with duct tape, we continued our journey towards Waitomo.

Since rain was forecasted for the next few days, we spent our time in various indoor pools until we finally arrived in Waitomo and were able to visit the famous Glowworm Caves.

You can imagine my initial enthusiasm spending the whole day in limestone caves, listening to a guide, and occasionally seeing some glowworms.

'We' booked a tour in two different caves. The first one was as expected, with our guide boredly reciting her memorized lines and talking about stalactites, stalagmites, etc. Since taking photos or videos was not allowed (and touching anything was obviously prohibited), we were forced to listen, so a more motivated guide would have been nice.

The highlight and the first ray of hope of the day was a short boat ride through a part of the cave. The caves were completely dark, and the blue glow worms on the ceilings and the swaying of the boat gave it a fairytale-like atmosphere, compensating for the boredom beforehand.

When we were on our way to the second cave and I realized that the tour would last about 3 times as long and there would be no boat ride, the brief excitement disappeared.

To my surprise, however, the cave and the tour were much more interesting, so our boredom was in check and we survived the two hours well. The glowworms were not as impressive as in the first cave boat ride, but the rest of the cave made up for it, and we were even allowed to take photos.

Overall, it turned out to be a surprisingly good day, at least for me, and we happily continued our journey to Turangi, where we planned to do a 20 km hike the next day.

Unfortunately, the bad weather got in our way again, so we had to postpone our hike for a day, as hiking is not much fun in pouring rain.

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a 19.4 km hike across a volcano that showcases the diversity and beauty of New Zealand's nature. From easy walking with nice bushes and trees on the side, to rocks, pebbles, and dirt (and the strong smell of sulfur) towards the top of the volcano, and then back down in the greenery, ending with a walk through the jungle, where you can see it all in 6-8 hours.

We didn't have the best weather and unfortunately no view at the summit, but at least we stayed mostly dry and were glad (and exhausted) to have survived this hike.

From now on, we continued heading north and towards better weather - finally, beach, relaxation, swimming, and hanging out. Besides driving and doing a few more hikes, that was our plan for the last 7-10 days.

We visited the Huka Falls at Lake Taupo, not a big waterfall and not so impressive at first glance, but with 200,000 liters per second flowing down, it's quite something and also makes a lot of noise.

In the Coromandel Peninsula, we went to the tourist-packed Hot Water Beach, where you can dig yourself some self-regulated pools in the sand. We limited ourselves to sitting in the already dug pools, which were partially already cold, because who wants to sit in a warm (and sometimes hot) pool on a scorching sunny day?!

Cathedral Cove was much more relaxed. Two beautiful bays connected by a passage in the rock.

In Whangamata, we had planned to go kayaking, but due to rough sea conditions, kayaks were not rented out for 3 days.

Well, at least we had something to do at the Bay of Islands, our last stop here in New Zealand.

In Paihia, the weather and the sea finally cooperated, and we finally got to go kayaking. We paddled to the Haruru Waterfall and back and were glad that we finally managed to go on a kayak trip in New Zealand.

Our last outing was a boat trip to Urupukapuka Island, about 40 minutes away from Paihia. It's a fascinating island with various bays, different hiking trails, camping sites, etc.

We decided to hike a bit first and then sunbathe and swim in the various bays before returning in the evening, realizing that our journey through New Zealand is practically coming to an end.

An eventful, fascinating journey through a;;;;;mega;;;;; beautiful country in a small area is already over.

Tomorrow, all that's left is doing laundry, driving to Auckland, returning the camper, and then heading straight to the airport and off to Central America.