Volcanos and Caves

First of all, I need to mention that this fragile creature they told us about actually exists..

The IronKiwi, found at daylight in Otorohanga. Quite thick-skinned..

 Left this zoological sensation behind and found myself after a 3-hour drive in the heart of North-Island, the Central Plateau.. Had some nice view onto the volcanos , Huka Falls and Lake Taupo..

Went the Tongariro alpine trip the day after.. The latest eruption was in August, so of course a real danger ;-)

Weather was well.. NZ like - changing from sunshine to rain, to snow storm whiteout to sun and snowfall again.. Took some 6h or so..

After an awesome Filet Mignon in Taupo and a hostel stay I decided to drive to the West into the Waitomo Cave region.
After a 100m abseiling we (USA, Austria and Kiwi explorers) had some hours to explore this amazing cave. Unfortunately commercially driven, so no individual trips are allowed..

  


Addicted to caves- as I am -  I stayed another night at Waitomo (again, excellent steak for dinner) and had a view on Ruakuri cave (dog's den). The legend tells abount the remains of people that have been killed by wild dogs and were buried below the cave entrance.For that reason a new entrance were built. Nice shot.

 Of course, traditional ways of caving still exists:

 Unbelievable.. A "no trespassing" sign, deep inside a cave.. Remember... Whats below your property belongs to you in NZ...

Full Moon

In general, dinner is a good thing. It is even better on a lonesome beach. But it is incredibly awesome at full moon! Well, been there - done that. Even if the road to this experience was.. well.. a little bit longer than I had expected.










Let's start at the beginning.. Started my way to Coromandel peninsula much too late and did an additional sidetrip to a 500m long mine which took me about 1,5h to return..

As it was in the middle of nowhere I got nearly stuck in the wet mud with my car. Needless to say that with all that driving experience this little obstacle couldn't hold me back..

 After passing Thames, Coromandel Town and around 60km of gravel road I finally reached Fletcher's Bay at the top of Coromandel. Sunset was hours ago but the moon lit my way. Until I got stuck. Wunderful.

My English vocabulary is not big enough to reproduce the words I found during this very lonesome moment. Epic. Suddenly I recognized a small light in the vicinity. Actually there were two, but at least I got that right and did not tried to walk to the signal light some Ks into the ocean. So I went towards this light and found the house of the camp site warden. He was quite happy to pull me out of my misery in the middle of the night...

But, he added that this happens quite often.. I mean that people hit the ONLY two square meters of wet, unstable grass on the whole camp site. His record was 3 times a day. So I call this irony of fate rather than incompetence. Just to make that clear to the attentive reader.

Finally I was able to make my dinner and eat under full moon accompanied by a cold beer (ice cubes for $3, I love it)... Spend some time watching and listening to the sea before going to bed..

 When I got up in the morning I realized how blessed I was with this campsite..

 and what 2 tons and a rear-wheel drive can do..

 After an amazing breakfast I went for the Coromandel walkway. It supposed to take 6hours. I did it in 4,5 and were still able to make fotos of the about 1 million sheep out there..

When I came back some other campers had made their way to Flecher's Bay. A littler bit noisy, so I decided to drive home the next day..