It’s been a while since the last post – hasn’t it? It is a sign of how this trip is different in a few ways from our usual. Not at this point yet, but later. There is a lot of work, and at the times where we are not working, we are trying to absorb as much of the moment as we can. And so, photos and blogging falls to the wayside a little bit.

This is still the time to absorb. We have switch to travel mode – planning ahead a day or two and trying to enjoy ourselves as much as possible.

The Waitomo Caves were really high up on the list of things that I wanted to show the kids. Since they are too small for Black Water Rafting, we booked a tour through Aranui cave which is a walking tour with a boat ride at the end. Glow worms really like wet environments.

Thus, the tour was the first thing we did today. It was a big hit with the kids, gliding through the dark in a boat with a starry sky above us. It was just one cave though and the boat ride was over quickly.

We left Waitomo and drove towards Taupo and Wai-o-tapu, the next big item on our “what to show the kids” list. Looking for a lunch stop and something to do over midday, we came across Te Waihou Blue Springs in Waikato in the lonely planet. A spring, a nice walkway…we crosschecked it with a NZ website which told us that the walk is closed but you can still get to the river at one side of it. We decided to try it anyway. It turned out to be the side of the river, where all the locals go swimming on hot days. Today was such a day and it was well frequented. The locals also jumped in from a fallen tree trunk. The water was freezing cold, not even the kids wanted to go swimming. Cooling down our feet was also lovely though. We stayed for much longer than we had anticipated and took the arrival of a whole class of teenagers on an excursion organised by their marae as our clue to bow out. It probably would have gotten energy-ladden as the young, mostly men, started doing push-ups before jumping into the water. It was super cool to see them and to hear them all speak te reo with each other. Our kids helped with the counting as far as they knew the numbers.

We stayed at another freedom camp that night and finally had the BBQ that the AoE was so looking forward to. Lake Okaro was right next to us.

The next day, we started with the Lady Knox geyser eruption at 10am. It is made to erupt every day at the same time. Wai-o-tapu was great (again) and both kids did an exceptionally good job with walking. We went all the way to the green lake.

In the afternoon, we stopped at Lake Taupo for a nap (Flo) and some playtime at the waterfront before heading east. Our original plan of taking the desert road and stopping at the volcanoes was thwarted by a two-month closure of state highway 1 for maintenance. So we had to go around and decided to head towards Napier. Somewhere along the road to Napier, there was the Kaweka Forest Park with a doc campsite within.

It was a campsite right in the forest, even without reception. Unfortunately, it was raining slightly but Number 3 used the time to draw a fantastic picture of our view of NZ bush.