Mini break to north island of New Zealand

Alyssa: We just came back from a much needed 4 days mini break to Auckland and the surrounding areas. New Zealand is such a gem of a place - small enough to travel around from one town to another within 3 hours, yet the landscape is diverse enough to keep keen travellers like us itching for more. (See photos on the left)


We flew into Auckland and drove south to our first stop, Waitomo, a town famous for its caves and glow worms. Who would have guess that underneath some of those unassuming paddock dotted with herds of sheep and cows exist a playground of caves for all sorts of imaginative adrenaline activities. We bravely/naively took to the challenge of the Haggas Honking Holes - cave abseiling. This was the first time we've ever abseiled down a cave - and it was such an adrenaline-charged experience! Our adventure consisted of abseiling down both wet and dry cave formations (including a water fall!), climbing, slithering, crawling, and feeling our way through the various cave passages and cavities. Being a slightly small person - I think I've found my niche sport as some of the other taller folks on the trip experienced great difficulties trying to squeeze their tall frames through the tiny cave passages whereas I had no problems maneuvering around! We also waddled through waist length underground water streams and river (no eels in sight unfortunately), and stopped occasionally to marvel at the array of stalactites and stalagmites, as well as the very pretty limestone formations. I also got up close and personal with the glow worms before climbing back up to light and setting foot back on terra firma.

Day 2 of our trip involved a drive to the town of Rotorua - dubbed by us as the 'fart city.' The town sits directly on top of a volcanic plateau with strong geothermal activities that causes the emission of smelly sulphuric steam to seep through every vent and gutter. For this reason, Rotorua has been placed on the tourist map where one gets to experience (aside from the smell), mineral-rich mud spa and the abundance of thermal sulphur spas. We visited the local thermal wonderland with sprouting geysers, bubbling mud,and colourful crater lakes. Yung and I couldn't resist the opportunity to submerge ourselves in a mud bath, followed by a soak in the sulphur spa and finally, a very relaxing Maori massage.

On Day 3, we travelled east to the town of Whakatane/Bay of Plenty to catch a cruise to the only active marine volcano in the southern hemisphere - White Island. On our way across the ocean, we encountered a school of cute bottle nose dolphins swimming along the boat. There were literally hundreds of them!

Stepping onto the volcanic landscape of White Island was a surreal experience. We don gas mask and helmets as a precaution just in case an eruption occurs during the tour! Everywhere on the volcano there was steam current sprouting from the ground set against the backdrop of hissing noises caused by the geothermal activity. After half a days worth of walking around the volcano, encountering the burning steam currents (where we had to put on the gas mask), dipping our hands in the hot acid water streams (apparently the level of acidity is the same as that found in coke!)and taking in the uneasy atmosphere, we boarded our cruiser to head back to Whakatane.

Our last day in NZ was spent in Auckland - a smaller version of Sydney with extremely steep hills. Just walking back and forth from our hotel to the CBD shops (which was a 3 block walk) caused me to break into a sweat from all the uphill cardio! Auckland, like the rest of NZ, tries to capitalise on its extreme sport image. There were bungy/base jump opportunities all over town with the most famous being the base jump from the Sky Tower - supposedly taller than the AMP Sydney Tower. And no, we managed to resist the temptation to join the tourist queue to do a base jump. I paid too much for my dinner that day to throw it up.

4 days was just too short. Countdown now to the next holiday - whenever that may be...