Rich and Cat's Travels: Caves, Auckland and the start of South Island

After an overnight coach to Wellington, on which we managed to get a couple of hours sleep we picked up our new hire car and started the drive to Waitimoo. The views were beautiful which helps the time fly by. We got to our accommodation, with a crazy bird lady, and decided to go out for dinner. The next morning we had to get up early and headed for our tubing in the caves which involved putting on wetsuits, gumboots and helmets, we were an attractive lot! Then we had to walk to the entrance where there was a steep and tight climb down a ladder (it was scary, partly because you couldn’t see the bottom and partly because there is no room for error as there were rocks everywhere. We then had to walk for a while before jumping off a wall into some water, in an inflatable tube. We all then floated on through the caves before getting out and walking again. Once we were in the heart of the caves we all turned off our head torches and looked at the glow-worms which light up the cave.

They are really a form of maggot and not a worm but they do look spectacular and there were thousands of them down there.

After the trip we jumped back in the car and headed for Auckland so that we had a couple of days to explore the city and we decided to take a little detour up to the top of Mount Eden on the way into the city. The views up there were great and we could see the whole city, Rich did say we had cheated as we drove to the top rather than walking but I disagreed.

After our night in Auckland we headed out to Devonport which is a suburb only accessible by ferry or bridge. It is a very old suburb and is very small but it was a lovely place to walk around and we decided to climb its highest hill, which was Mount Victoria (which is a little smaller than Mount Eden). Again we got some great views of the harbour and over into the city. We then had to return our car and we proceeded to explore the city but there really wasn’t that much to it so before we knew it we were in a bar taking full advantage of their happy hour for $3 Heinekens!

We had an early morning flight the next day so we had to get up at 3am to get to the airport on time for our flight to Christchurch. Once there we went and dropped our bags at our accommodation before heading into the City to meet one of Rich’s friends from Uni, who was also travelling through Christchurch on the same day. After a lovely lunch by the river we went into the city to explore. At first glance you don’t see the effect of the earthquake 4 years ago but once you look closer you can really see the damage. There is a lot of space where buildings used to be that is now empty and then there are lots of high rise buildings that are fenced off as they are not safe to enter, or that have sections like their roof missing. There is also a cathedral that looks fine from one side but has been decimated on the other side. There is also a section called re-start where a lot of shops have been able to reopen in shipping containers, including the bank and the post office. It was really interesting to walk around and see how the city is trying to rebuild itself.

After Christchurch we got another car and headed up the coast to kaikoura to go swimming with seals and after putting on all our wetsuits and heading out on the bus to the boat we got told the tour was cancelled due to bad weather at sea. We did managed to rebook it for a few days later, and then we headed on to our next destination which was in the Abel Tssaman National park, which was a 5 hour drive away. The next morning we jumped into some Kayaks and had a guided tour of some of the park where we were able to see some seals, some spotted shags (birds not the other type) and a rare herron. After the tour we got back in our car and headed to our next destination of Nelson where we stayed before heading back to Christchurch by car and coach (which we are currently on). We are spending the night back in Christchurch before heading out on the road again!