Taupo, Waitomo, & Hamilton, New Zealand

The rest of our North Island adventure brought us in a zig zagging route back up to Auckland. We stopped first in Taupo, near the mountain portrayed as Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings, but unfortunately it was too cloudy to get a good view of the mountain. We did get to enjoy the scenery a bit lower to ground level though- there was a waterfall that gushes at a rate that could fill 5 Olympic swimming pools per minute! We also went to a local honey shop, where we tried at least 12 varieties of honey, including lavender. The interesting thing about NZ honeys is that most of them are creamed honeys, so they are partially crystallized and much thicker than your typical honey. They also had a selection of honey liqueurs, ice cream, fudge, and, much to Adam's delight, mead. All of it was delicious. We also had a second hot springs adventure in Taupo, this time in a stream instead of bubbling up on the beach, and it was HOT. Almost too hot to sit in!

Next we wound our way over to Waitomo, home of some of the largest caves in New Zealand. Our express purpose in going here was to go on a caving adventure, which included "abseilling" (rappelling), ziplining, tubing, and rock climbing! The guides almost convinced me not to go because of my busted hand, but Adam encouraged me, and it turned out I could do everything just fine one-handed. I'm glad we didn't have to bail, because the cave was pretty interesting; by far the coolest part was the glowworms! They looked like tiny stars in huge constellations covering the roof of the cave, although the guides filled us in on some of the biological processes of the glowworms that killed the magic a bit (google it if you're interested, otherwise let the magic remain intact!).

Our final stop in the North Island was the city of Hamilton, which according to the locals was more of a convenient stopover point than a destination, but we were very glad we went! Hamilton is the home of what I would say are the prettiest public gardens I have ever seen. The gardens were organized in themes: Italian renaissance, Indian, Japanese meditation, even perfumed flowers! A disclaimer that at this point in our trip, both my camera and Adam's are broken- mine is totally busted, and his still takes pictures, but the screen is broken so we can't see what we're taking pictures of! So if the pictures are off-center, cut off part of the subject, or otherwise suck, it's because we can't see them until we upload them. Regardless, take my word for it- these gardens are gorgeous.

We're having trouble getting photos uploaded, so sorry about the wordy post without many pictures! Hopefully we'll get that resolved soon.