Sunday 13th December - Gloworms and Kiwi's and Rotourua Oh My!!

Hudson:

Moving on again this time to Rotorua.  Luckily it's only a short drive so more chance for us to explore along the way.

Our first stop was to visit the Waitomo Gloworm Caves.  A guided walk through the caves and short boat trip to look at the famous inhabitants.  It was an amazing experience.  No photos allowed, but there were millions on them it was like a galaxy of stars.

Apparently the accoustics of the 'Catherdral' part of the caver were perfect for music.  Rod Stewart and Kiwi Te Kanua have sung there (not a duet!) and our guide invited one of us to test it out.  No one did - sorry Dad if you'd been there you could've done your Tevye!

Headed over to Rotorua in the afternoon sampling another delicious Mrs Mac's pie en route (some people do wine tours, we're doind a pie tour!)

First stop in Rotorua was the Raindow Springs wildlife park.  It was all set around a natural spring with loads of cool wildlife to see.  Some of it was a bit random - we had an array of chickens follow us around for half the walk - but in an endearing way!  They also have a Kiwi conservation / breeding programme there called "Operation Nest Egg".  Kiwi's are endangered so in an effort to boost the population they are taking eggs from the wild and seeing the kiwi's through to adulthood they they get released back to where they came from and the success rate is very high.

What interesting creatures - I actually love them!  Although classified as a bird they share many more attributes with mammals.  This slightly annoying Aussie woman in our tour group started questionning whether the biologists had it right and whether in fact they should be classed as a mammal.  The guides conclusion was that they are just queer old birds - in other words "shut up"

We got to see a couple in this special nocturnal enclosure, one chick and one 27 year old (they can live as lon as humans).  They are funny to watch, really intriguing, it as lovely to see and I had quite a moment.

Then headed into Rotorua to check into our hostel which is right in the centre of town.

We headed to the local park which is just filled with hot water pools, mud pools and fumeroles - all very interesting although all of the sulphur in the air does give the whole place a slight rotten egg smell.

We are told that you get used to it and no longer smell it after a while - this hasn't happend yet!!