Day 5 – Thames it is

Tegan and I had business to take care of.  We picked up a passport to Northland earlier in our trip and we needed 4 more passport stamps in order to fulfill the contest requirements and enter a draw for a return trip to New Zealand with a bunch of included bonuses.  There were 2 spots in Whangarei we would be able to get stamps prior to getting the other 2 stamps in Waipu later in the day.  We deserve a trip back to experience a sunny Northland instead of the wet one we happened upon this time.

The other morning outing was to experience the Abbey Caves just outside of Whangarei.  These are a free access outing that gets you muddy and wet but you will experience a spelunking experience that is off the beaten path.  The trails are nicely marked if only leaving you guessing as to the number of caves and the distance involved to experience them.  Tegan had her fill after the first cave, but the walk around the pastures and back to the car was quite nice with roaming cattle and Weka birds strolling about.

The cave experience was truly great.  The water was up to my knees, it had been raining for the past 3-4 days there, so it was to be expected.  You need to have a flashlight and be able to manoeuvre over rocks.  The first cave we only explored about 200m, but it is pitch black when you turn out the lights… well not pitch black, your periphery is sparsely filled with little points of blue light; glow worms!  If you do go and you wish to photograph the glow worms, you will require a tripod and and a camera capable of long exposures.  My little Canon s95 allowed for 15s exposures and this was just enough to capture the glow worms.  I used my flashlight to light up some of the caves and actually have a decent shot that shows some of the glow worms on the lit cave surface.

After this we went to see a couple of waterfalls, but eventually opted out of seeing the Whangarei falls as we were getting close to running into the Auckland rush hour.  So off we sped for Waipu, the Cape Breton of New Zealand… well it was settled by a bunch of Cape Breton Scots many years ago.  In order to gain a stamp in our passport we had to view to the Waipu museum first.  It has a nice display and if I had a Mac**** surname, likely I would be able to learn more of my lineage.  Also of note they play a rugby game during their highland games and the game is played in kilts.

We flew through Auckland without any problem and I believe it was around 3:00 or 3:30 pm.  Phew.  The road got much flatter as we traveled towards Coromandel and there were many lambs and calves to be seen on our travels through the Waikato region.  Our destination arrived just as dusk was approaching, we stayed at Dicksons Holiday Park and it was just alright.  I thought this would have been one of the highlight stops of our trip, but the website sells it further than I would have.   

The USA vs Russia game was on, but not at the park, so off we went to the local pub.  Tegan managed to stay awake until halftime and then fell asleep on my lap as I watched the game.  I learned of the area from a local and although fascinating, it was distracting me from the game.  Guess he hadn’t an ear to fill in a while.  Sad that Russia lost to the USA, it wasn’t that great of a game to watch either.  Off we drove back to our holiday park and call it a night.