From glow worms to geysers, that was our day yesterday, toped off with a cultural experience and hangi banquet. We started the day at Waitoma Caves with a guided tour of a cave which concluded with a boat trip through a starlight like cavern with glow worms providing the lighting. Our guide was the great-granddaughter of a Maori chief who was the first to lead tourists through the caves in the 1880’s. We then travelled on to Rotorua where we had our first experience of geothermal activity. We also learned a new Maori word Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao meaning “the gathering place of the war parties of Wahiao”.
This morning I woke with one of those ‘where am I’ experiences but then I breathed in the sulphur fumes and my memory was restored. Then we went to hell. Hell’s Gate that is, another geothermal site. And then it was on to inspect Te Wairoa a village that was buried by a volcanic eruption in the 1890’s and has been uncovered by archaeological digs from the 1930s to the 1980s. The guide told us there are over 1000 earthquakes in NZ each year (fortunately most are not felt). We arrived in Taupo this afternoon.
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