Category Archives: Locations

Places around the world

The Lost World

Leave a reply

We are super excited and a little anxious to explore The Lost World!  The Woodlyn Park Lodge is right next door to Waitomo Adventures so it is a short drive to start our day.

We meet our guide who has over 2,500 abseils (rappels) under his belt.  He used to manage the business so we were in really in good hands.  It is just the four of us: Matt, Wayne, me, and Scott our guide.

We drive 20 minutes to the location where we get geared up and dressed.  After a short 101, we head to the “testing” area.  They provide everything: helmets with lights, jumpsuits, and wellies (boots).  

They have a little area that they call “the testing center” which gives us an opportunity to test all of our gear while getting comfortable clipping in and out of the lines.  After the short diversion, we head to the platform where we will abseil 100 meters into the center of the earth – aptly called The Lost World.

Abseiling

The first thing you have to do is lean over the gap between the platform and the steel pipe.  I just kept repeating to myself “don’t look down, don’t look down.”  Yes we are tied in three ways to Sunday, but it still doesn’t stop your heart from jumping in your throat!

All 4 of us are clipped together.  So, if one person starts to fall they will be stopped by the other 3 people.  We each have our own abseil line and 3 connecting lines or safety points.

One by one we remove our feet from the platform and hang hundreds of feet above the cavern.

What am I thinking?  This is nutso.  Yes, I have a smile on my face, but trust me when I say I was a wee bit terrified!

To go down, you lift the line up.  For the men it was rather easy as their weight pulled them down.  But for me, I had to actively work at lowering myself and to keep up with the men.  

The boys were having a blast, releasing their hands, leaning back and just dangling. Where I had the vulcan death grip on both boys.

As we start to descend you feel the gravity of the distance below you.  But the beauty in the area takes your breath away and you can truly see why they call this the Lost World.

We make several stops along the way down to ensure we take in all of the splendor that the Lost World has to offer.

A Walk on the Wild Side

We finally make it to the bottom and my heart beat returns to normal.  We crawl over boulders, through the river, over rocks, and under huge limestone formations.  The sun tries to sneak in through the crevices giving us fun photo opportunities.

We continue climbing deep into the recess of the Lost World using our headlamps to light the way.

The Glowworms

We come to a massive cave where we pop a squat and turn off our lights.  And what do we see but a bazillion glowworms!  This time we actually get to see the glowworm up close (top right photo) and its beautiful silk threads (bottom right corner).  If you look closely you will see the glow of the blue tails, but it is hard to get us, in the dark and the glowworms.

Departing the Lost World

Now, comes the fun part (not), climbing back out of the Lost World.  We begin by scampering over rocks, boulders, and more large limestone formations, slowly heading high and higher.  

Then we come to an enormous ladder that reaches 100m into the sky.  You can’t even see the top part of it. It is wet, muddy, and hard to hold on to.  We are clipped in at three safety points and begin the climb one at a time.  Holy hell that was hard on my arms!

But we all make it out and have an additional 20-minute uphill hike to the launching area.  What a spectacular and remarkable adventure.  If you are ever in Waitomo, I highly recommend The Lost World tour with the Waitomo Adventures team!

  • Hotel: Trinity Hotel
  • Kilometers Traveled: 0 
  • Time Traveled: 0 
  • Kilometers Walked:  5.5km (couldn’t bring phone on Lost World)

Events from this blog occurred at the end of February.  Our blogs posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual events.  Be sure to read the first part of our trip in Waitomo in our last blog post.

Waitomo Glowworms

Leave a reply

Waitomo is famous for its bountiful caves which are covered in beautiful glowworms.  I say “beautiful” loosely because the actual worm is not so hot looking, but its brilliantly bright tail is a spectacular thing to see when emersed inside a pitch black cave.

We arrive into Waitomo after a 2.5 hour drive from Auckland.  The journey was uneventful and kept us on a beautiful, proper 4 lane highway (that even had a shoulder)  for most of the trip.  We did get a lot of fog, but once it cleared it was stunning, rolling, green hills and farm lands.

Waitomo means “water” “cave” (wai=water) and (tomo=cave).  There are well over 300 caves that they know of – which means there are plenty more to be discovered.

Arriving in Waitomo

We make our first stop in Ortohanga, the neighboring town to Waitomo, to have lunch at the Thirsty Weta. We enjoyed some cold beer and pretty tasty food.  Then we headed to the Waitomo Caves Museum and Discovery Center.  Super informative, interactive, and informational museum where we learned all about the glowworm.

Fun Facts:

  • A glowworm is not actually a worm
  • It lives as a maggot or larvae for the first 6-9 months, then builds a cocoon where it then turns into a fly with no mouth!  
  • The fly only lives for 3 days and their primary goal is to mate.
  • The larvae, which is about as long as a match stick, will build a small hammock that can slide front to back.
  • They drop between 30-40 sticky, silk threads that are used to catch their prey.
  • Their tails light up attracting moths, mosquitos, and other insects which then get stuck in their silk threads.
  • Females lay about 200-300 eggs in 20-30 clusters (all within the 3 days she has to live as a fly, find a mate, mate, lay, and distribute the eggs).
  • The first larvae to hatch will eat its siblings to get strength to build its hammock and drop its threads (charming).
  • The glowworms tail will brighten and dim in 24hr cycles with the other glowworms in its cluster (they are in sync) and will provide an endless luminescence. 

The museum also had bones from a really large and rare bird, called the moa.

Waitomo Caves

Waitomo is famous for its caves which is their primary tourist attraction.  Unfortunately, they do not allow any photography inside the cave.  

We start our tour out by descending 13 meters into the cave.  We are surrounded by stunning stalactites and stalagmites that are thousands and thousands of years old.  They have a strict no touch policy so we keep our hands to ourselves.  Tons of curtains, candles, and mounds hanging from the ceiling and slowly reaching for its partner on the ground.

After a 20-25 minute walk along these beautiful structures, we quietly board a small boat in the dark.  This is the part we’ve all been waiting for – the glowworms.  We silently glide in the water as the guide uses a pull rope to maneuver the boat.  It is breathtaking to see these bright blue lights dotted all over the ceiling and cavern walls.  The top left photo was taken in slow-mo by someone else, but it gives you an idea of what it looked like.

They did have a fun green screen for photos –  we got suckered into the purchase since we couldn’t take any photos on the tour.

And us in the caves…Matt and Wayne with a lion, oh wait, that is me with crazy hair!

Ruakuri Bushwalk

After our leisurely stroll through the museum we decide to follow one of the trails that leads to another trail called Ruakuri Bushwalk.  We were not really prepared for this long walk as we did not have any water, but the path was pretty flat and well marked.

The first trail started at the Waitomo Caves, connected to Johnston Memorial trail then to Waitomo Walkway before it connected us with the Ruakuri loop.  But the long walk was worth it as the Ruakuri trail was fabulous!

We followed the river and discovered loads of caves!  The trail even took us through several caves or tunnels.

We crossed over a questionable bridge, trespassed on a few farms, and climbed over fences.

The river was at times gushing and other times tranquil.

Even if you skip the original walk that brought us to the Ruakuri Bush Walk, we highly recommend the Ruakiru Bush walk – it was absolutely fantastic.

The Woodlyn Park Lodge

We took the whimsical route when we decided to stay at the Woodlyn Park Lodge.  You have a choice of staying in a train, a freighter Bristol airplane, a hobbit cabin, or an old war ship (ML430).  

We opted to stay in the Oceanic “suite” in the stern of the ship (primarily because everything else was sold out!).  As it turned out, it was super fun with a large outdoor deck overlooking the river.

Upstairs is the living area, deck, and kitchen area.  Downstairs is the bathroom, master bed room (thru the small door) and an additional room with 3 single beds.

It certainly was fun and a novelty for us all.  Stay tuned tomorrow as we go 100 meters into the center of the earth on the Lost World tour.

  • Hotel: The Woodlyn Park Lodge
  • Kilometers:  185
  • Travel Time: 3hrs15min
  • Kilometers Walked: 9.8km on 22 Feb and 8.7km on 23 Feb

Events from this blog occurred in late February,  Our blog runs 10-12 weeks behind actual events.  Did you catch our last blog where we visit the City of Sails?

Auckland - The City of Sails

Auckland: The City of Sails

Leave a reply

We start our first day of our road trip by heading to Auckland.  Typically, this is a 2.5 hour drive.  However, we anticipate it taking 3-3.5 hours due to the road closures, detours, and traffic delays caused by cyclone Gabrielle’s destruction.

Our first detour takes us along the coast at Waipu which is a small, windy road.  Large semi trucks, 18-wheelers, and other large vehicles are forbidden from traveling on this road.   But since the main Hwy is closed, they are all taking their chances.  It did not go well for this one truck that blocked our path for well over an hour.  The top photo is just one example of the damaged roads from the pounding rains and strong winds brought by Gabrielle.

Auckland

We meet up with Wayne at the Gamma Hotel and immediately head toward Viaduct Harbour for some lunch.  There are lots of cool restaurants, hotels, and shops by the wharf.  We settle on The Conservatory for lunch which is directly across from Team Emirates New Zealand’s America’s Cup home.  I met a few team members, but for the life of me I cannot figure out who the heck they are 🙂  So, if you recognize any of these fellows, please let me know their names.

Lucky for us, they brought out their two boats for a test run.  We watched them trailer the boats out of the hangar, install the mast, and use a massive crane to splash them into the water.

It seems like so much work to take these boats out for a two hour sail.  However, they work efficiently to get both boats out in less than 3 hours.

And off they go…with a tow by the chase boat (which has (4) 350hp engines)

We stop to have drinks at Brew on the Quay, then head back to the hotel.

Albert Park

There is a beautiful park within walking distance from the Gamma hotel called Albert Park.   We take a leisurely stroll throughout the park and enjoying its beauty.

There are stunning, old trees that wrap around the path and each other.

A little history of Albert’s Park

Albert Park in central Auckland was a military barracks during the conflict in Northland from 1845 to 1846. Troops were stationed there until 1871, when most of the buildings and walls were demolished. The park itself was constructed 10 years later.

There are lots of monuments dedicated to heroes and leaders.

The Sky Tower

The next day, we head to the Sky Tower, the tallest man-made structure in New Zealand. The Sky Tower is 328 meters tall, which is 8 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower and 24 meters taller than the Sydney Tower Eye. 

It took 2 years and 9 months to build this $85million (NZD) tower.  The Sky Tower weighs 21 million kilos or about 6,000 elephants.  It was constructed from 15,000 cubic meters of concrete, 2,000 tones of reinforced steel, and 260 panes of glass.

We truly enjoyed the beautiful views from the 51st and 60th floors.  They have a blue film or filter or light which made all of my photos blue.  They were cleaning the windows and I had a little fun with one of the guys hanging out on the outside of the tower.

Being the adventure capital of the world there are two crazy things you can do at the Sky Tower.  You can Sky Jump off the tower and fall 192 meters straight down or you can take a breath-taking walk perched high above the ground.  The boys had flip flops on so we could not do either of these nutso activities.  We did play around the glass floor panels….

The Maritime Museum of Auckland

You can’t go to the City of Sails without stopping by the Maritime Museum of Auckland.  This museum showcases the history of the city of sails, chronologically in New Zealand.  It was fascinating to learn about the different wakas and ships.

Huge Migration to New Zealand

They also had a separate wing dedicated to the millions of immigrants that came to New Zealand in the 1800-1900’s.  NZ attracted workers by offering them land (see add below).  Immigrants originally travelled in ships that took 6-8 months to cross the ocean. 

Inside, there was a room which they called the “sample” room.  It was meant to give you an idea of what it was like to live on the boat during the initial migration.  They had floors that tilted so you could experience what it was like to be at sea.  Families were squeezed into tiny bunks (top right and center right).  A century later, they figured out how to have drinking water and refrigeration along with actual cabins (bottom right).

They had lots of interactive areas that really gave you the feeling of what it was like back in the day.

  • Hotel: The Gamma Hotel
  • Kilometers Traveled: 185km
  • Travel time: 3.5 hours
  • Kilometers Walked: 10.4km on 21 Feb and 9.8km on 22 Feb

We really enjoyed our time in Auckland, but we need to move on to Waitomo.

Events from this blog occurred in mid-February.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual events.  This is the first blog post of our month-long road trip. Be sure to read our last blog where we highlight our overall road trip plan..