A Three Hour Tour

After sunny Nelson I made my way to Picton and boarded the Interislander Ferry for the ~3 hour trip across the Cook Strait from Picton on the South Island to Wellington on the North Island. The ferry wove its way through the beautiful Marlborough Sounds and out into the open ocean between the islands. The weather turned foul (surprise surprise) and the open ocean proved to be quite rough, tossing the boat around a bit despite its massive size and causing a good portion of the passengers to become sea sick. Needless to say, everyone was happy to arrive in Wellington. I found Wellington to be very hip and metro with a lively vibe. While there I took myself on a walking tour of the city starting at the Parliament buildings and ending at impressive Te Papa, the national museum, where I spent the second half of the day. From Wellington I traversed the bulk of the North Island to arrive in the stinky (I mean this in the most literal sense of the word) geothermal hotspot of Rotorua. From Rotorua I took a day trip to Waitomo to visit the Waitomo Glow Worm Cave and Ruikuri Cave. I thoroughly enjoyed the glow worms. We walked through a portion of the glow worm cave, then loaded into a little wooden boat and were instructed to be very quiet as our guide slowly and silently ferried us into the "glow worm grotto" where the darkness was illuminated only by the glow of the glow worms. What a feat of nature! It looked like a starry sky. The caves were pretty neat as well, but paled in comparison to the glow worms within them. Sorry...no glow worm photos...turns out glow worms are camera shy and don't handle camera flashes well. I do however have video. A couple are attached below. The first one shows a handfull of glowing glow worms. Unfortunately we couldn't take photos or film the glow worm grotto, but the attached video from the Ruikuri Cave gives you a little taste of what they look like. The second shows the strands they put out to catch bugs as well as a glow worm itself. Please excuse the somewhat poor videos; filming in a pitch black cave was a bit of a challenge.

Little Glowing Bums


Sticky Strands


Next up...The Bay of Islands