3 March 2020 - Raglan and Ngarunui Beach - New Zealand

Today is the last full day of our first trip to NZ. We needed to get back to Auckland by the 4th so we decided on a random town on the west coast. I was drawn to Raglan thinking it had some reference to Irish history along with the poem/song; however, it seems the town history is not related to Ireland. We arrived rather late so we only had half a day to explore before starting our final drive to get in position for the flight home.

The town area had a nice set of small shops and restaurants. There were also a few places to rent bikes and kayaks. I would have liked to have spent a few days in this area.

The nearby beach, Ngarunui, is a popular surfer's beach. Kind of wished I would have rented a board and gone out for a few sets.

We also visited Wedding Veil falls which included a 15km drive from town. We never get sick of these kinds of hikes and views!

This concludes the blog posts for our first trip to NZ.

2 March 2020 - Waitomo - New Zealand

One of the remaining north island places I wanted to visit was the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. We left the town of Hamilton to start our drive. Along the way, we found a Kiwi (the official bird of NZ) sanctuary. Like most tourists, we had been hoping to see such a bird but were disappointed that they were not everywhere. Turns out Kiwis are nocturnal ground birds!

We arrived a little later to the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves than I intended, but managed to get tickets at the local i-Site tour center. I, unfortunately, chose the cave tour where photos were not allowed. But, maybe this is a good thing, reducing my negative impact with eco-tourism.

Here is a google image search. The photos really don't do it justice. It was like staring up at a clear night's sky and enjoying the stars. 

1 March 2020 - Gisborne Cape (eastern) - New Zealand

Today was mostly about driving around the eastern cape or Gisborne Cape. Our goal was to explore the coast a little more, then head towards Rotorua. It was a much longer drive than expected, but there were a few rewarding discoveries along the way.

The morning graced us with another nice sunrise. I managed to capture another time-lapse.

  One of our first stops ended up being an interesting historic shipping wharf. Located on Tolaga bay, this landmark is where shipments occured across the 1800's into the early 1900s.

Our next main stop was the small town of Te Araroa where we enjoyed a snack and a fresh coffee. Nearby, we enjoyed yet another beach.

Rounding out the Cape we found ourselves back on the Bay of Plenty. We enjoyed the coastline and then finally headed inland.

Our final stop of the day was Rotorua. I really wish we could have spent more time here but also had to make a tough scheduling choice about a visit to the west coast and Waitomo. We had dinner then continued on to Hamilton where we would spend the night.