The inland: Hamilton, Rotorua, Taupo and around

After leaving Raglan, we were supposed to meet 3 more members (Chris, Alan and Liso) of 'golf rd on tour' in Hamilton. Unbelievably everything went as planned and agreed and we really did meet them:)

Hamilton is totally uninteresting city - not even worth to take out the camera, so no pictures.

After one night in Hamilton we decided to drive a bit south to see one of the main attraction of the north island: Waitomo glowworm caves

This picture is downloaded as it is forbidden to take pictures in the caves. Anyway, I heard a lot about the caves before and have seen many of these kind of pictures, but still were kind of resistant to the fact that it could be that amazing. But it was! The boat ride through the cave under thousands of glowworms was totally magical and breath-taking. Hard to describe...

Next on itinerary was Rotorua - the smelly town.

Smelly because of this - hot mineral springs all over the town with rotten-egg smell. Yummy.

Apart from the smell I really liked the look of Rotorua (although I've heard many times before how it sucks). On the picture - the complete road-trip crew (from left Zeh (Brasil), Chris (Germany), Liso, Alan (both Argentina) and me) in front of the Rotorua museum.

Leaving Rotorua we stopped to see one of many traditional Maori villages that are here. However we didn't get any further than the entrance bridge as the Maori businessmen wanted $35 for the entry, which we considered too much. So we hanged out for a while with few local kids that were having fun at the entrance bridge and then moved on.

Next stop - Taupo - the biggest NZ lake...

...and the north island capital of extreme sports. I did not do bungy here - saving it for the highest one in the mecca of bungy - Queenstown.

Huka falls - waterfalls on Waikato river right behind Taupo. The height of the falls was not that interesting, but the power of the stream was unbelievable. 200,000 m3/s - would fill one olympic swimming pool in 12s.

For the night we moved to a peaceful wharf close to the Tongariro National park (as our intention was to do the Tongariro alpine crossing the following day). As we found out from a camping german fisherman, this was one of the best fishing spots in NZ (and assuming from the deliciousness of the trout and salmon he gave us for dinner I would say it's true). On picture Alan - the rainbow kid :)

Next day: early wake up, drive to the start of Tongariro crossing aaaand change of plans... The weather was really horrible that day - whole mountains covered in heavy clouds, strong wind, rain... So we decided to leave it for the future and head to the west coast instead. More on that in the next post ;)