NZ Adventures 7: Waitomo

Our next day was spent in the Waitomo area. We talked Steph into joining us the night before, so we had one more for our adventure. After breakfast we headed for Waitomo to meet the famous NZ kiwis at a Kiwi house.



At the kiwi house (and bird zoo) I was super surprised to find out that Kiwis are nocturnal – which is why they have a house. They have the lights timed in such a way that two kiwis are out in the morning and two in the afternoon. They use the lights to fool them into thinking that it’s night during those hours.

The bird zoo was cool because there were a bunch of cool birds. But there were TONS of ducks. It turned into a joke “Hey Gene, did you see the ducks?” And he, of course, would ask me back.



They had a Pukeko! We were excited since we could finally see one close enough for them to not just look
like black spots, way out in the distance.





Fejoas! Depending upon who you ask in our group they either taste like starfruit or the smell of rubber. I liked them and thought they tasted more like starfruit.





That day, I decided it was time for food experiments and jam is WAY less interesting than real fruit, so I went for a fejoa and peanut butter sandwich. It was surprisingly delicious!

Apparently NZ folk don’t fancy PB&J as much as us North American folk. This shows Steph’s feelings about her PB&J trial.



These signs were always interesting. The person with the black arrow has the right of way . . .



. . . over the one-lane bridge. One-lane bridges were super-common on our windy, two-lane road adventures.



With another super windy drive, we found ourselves at Marakopa falls. They were huge and gorgeous.



We continued on the same road to the Waitomo Peninsula to see the beach with the black sand.



I had never seen black sand before, so I was a bit amazed.



It was fun chatting with Steph as we walked. Since I got to NZ just in time for the wedding, I hadn’t had much of a chance to chat with her before.



Jean decided to have a seat on her shoes and inspect the sand on her feet. I made her show me so you could see how black it is.



One last look before we headed back.



When we got back to the head of the beach, where I had left my flip-flops, they had disappeared. We were all a bit surprised because there hadn’t been many people on the beach with us.

After watching the beginning of another un-sunset, we headed back to pick up Dan and ended up eating dinner in the car.

NZ Adventures 5: Waihi

The Monday after arriving, we were off for more adventures.

It started off, of course, with all six of us sharing the bathroom to get ready. This worked quite well, actually, as the shower and the toilet each had their own room, so we could all do various getting ready activities at the same time.

Here’s the power plug from the bathroom. It even had it’s own on/off switch.



Dan came back that afternoon and then it was time to call the insurance and have me put on as a driver – a fun and exciting thought!

The first thing I noticed in driving was this sticker on the dash. Obviously Jucy rental company gets plenty of foreign renters.



The fun thing about the car, from this strangely named rental company was that all the locals seemed to think we were selling juice. We got asked a few times about what kind of juice we sold and who we sold to. (Photo taken by Dolly).

We headed to friends of some of our party’s house. I didn’t take many pictures since I was driving, but we drove though the beautiful Karangahake Gorge. The drive was super curvy, and I was really glad I was driving. Before the end of the gorge, we turned off for the friend’s house.

When we arrived we found that they had a pukeko statue in their front lawn. This was exciting because we were staying at Pukeko Lodge and it was the “first” one we had seen close enough to get a decent picture of.



At the friend’s house, I got my second serving of my new favorite food, slice.

After the friend’s house, we decided that since we had already come most of the way, we should go out to the Waihi beach before the sunset. We got there just in time!



I loved the shape of this tree.



Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of the island to watch the sunset, but we did manage to see a glorious un-sunset.


Once the sun was mostly down, we headed back to Paeroa. We decided to eat in town and ended up back at the same café we had been to the day before.

I got quiche and . . .



. . . slice. Was there really any other option? The bottom layer was chocolate and coconut, the middle was caramel and the top was chocolate. It was kinda like a Samoas Girl Scout Cookie.



After dinner, we headed home and played Skip-Bo.