Beyond Auckland

The other day Sarah and I had a guided tour to places outside of Auckland, like the Waitomo caves (also known as the glow worm caves) and Rotorua hot springs along with some stops along the way. After leaving the city for a 3 hour drive you really get the feeling that there is TON of open land in NZ. Along the way we seen tons of sheep and cows so many that I now have a life time worth. A thing that I found odd is they raise deer here as if it is the same as sheep, so along the way we came across some deer farms.

The Waitomo caves is a must see if you come to NZ. It starts off with a walk inside the caves along with some history about the caves and the worm. After some walking you get to a boat, after getting in all lights go out and you just float along looking at the worms that look like tons of stars. Sadly I couldn’t take any photos in the caves.

The next stop was Rotorua hot springs, it is simply amazing. The geysers at Rotorua hot springs puts old faithful in Yellowstone to shame in my opinion. You really get a good feeling that this place is heavily active by sitting down on some shelves seats they have, they are fully heated by the ground. Rotorua was also a place that some of the Maori lived, We where able to see the Maori welcoming ceremony and lean more about there culture and art. Over all the tour was great and worth the time to go to some wonderful places.