South to Wellington . . .

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Auckland from Great Barrier Island via the Subritsky Line ferry 'Lara'. We beat rush hour traffic by minutes and zipped right through Auckland, heading south on Highway 1 through hundreds of kilometers of rolling sheep paddocks. Near dusk we pulled into the Waitomo Caves Motel in Otorohanga. Early tomorrow we are going 'black-water' rafting, a float trip down a subterranean river. We're all excited, especially Kaaren.

Sunday 01 February

Robyn (our proprietress) delivered breakfast to us at 0730. We ate, packed up and headed for the Black Water Cafe where we joined up with eight other intrepid souls. There we met our two guides, Garritt and Shar, who'd be taking us on our float trip through Waitomo Caves. It was an international expedition, made up of spelunkers representing Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands, Tahiti, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.

We were each fitted out with appropriate gear: full 7mm wetsuit, 'eel-pants', boots and liners, helmet with headlamp, and an inner-tube. Then we drove to the point where the Waitomo River exits the caves for a briefing. We practiced at various necessary maneuvers such as forming up into an 'eel' wherein we each sat in our tubes and hooked feet under the arms of the person in front of us, making a chain that could slither through narrow openings as the river carried us. Then we all had to demonstrate our gumption by leaping backward off a raised platform into the cold river with our tubes snugged up against our bums . . . by this is the maneuver we'd negotiate waterfalls inside the cave.

After a hike through dense forest we climbed down a defile in the rock and entered the cave through a narrow crack. At first the water was but a rivulet, but the distant sound of rushing water hinted at a greater torrent far below. We carefully picked our way down the slippery, water-smoothed limestone rocks by the light of headlamps, finally reaching the river proper. We couldn't see much, and it required a leap of faith to do a backward butt-jump off a ledge into the black swirling water below.

For the next two hours we glided and bumped through caverns and narrow defiles. Sometimes we'd all douse our lights and the enveloping inky blackness must have challenged any claustrophobes in the group . . . until we looked up and saw our first Arachnocampa luminosa. At first there were just a few pinpricks of light high above us. And then we floated into a hundred-foot-high grotto that glowed from the blue light of millions of glow worms hanging from the rocks high overhead. It looked for all the world like a bright blue Milky Way.

The 'glow worms' are actually larvae of an insect that looks much like a small cranefly. The larva dangles a long, sticky thread into which other little cave beasties blunder as they're attracted to the bioluminescence produced by breakdown of feces by an enzyme called 'luciferin'. Pretty cute trick.

Too soon we saw a paling in the darkness ahead and we floated out into the sunlight. Back at the cafe we warmed up with hot showers, soup and bagels, and our incredible cave adventure was done.

Warm and dry and fed, we backtracked a little way northward so we could visit the Kiwi House in Otorohanga. This is the largest kiwi breeding sanctuary in the world, where all three species (little spotted, great spotted, and brown) are hatched, raised and then released back to the wild. Tyler and Rusty befriended one of the caretakers and she took us on a private tour of the kiwiarys. It was wonderful to see these rare and peculiar birds up close and personal. We were surprised at their size. The Great Spotted Kiwi is knee-high and are very active and inquisitive creatures. Their eggs are extraordinarily large relative to body size, requiring almost four months to hatch, compared to barely three weeks for a chicken egg. And unlike a chicken, a baby kiwi is born prepared to fend for itself. Unfortunately it has no defense against introduced predators like dogs, cats and stoats.

Then we turned back south along the west coast past Horopito and found the turnoff to Lahar Lodge, which is actually a working cattle, sheep and deer ranch. The proprietor, Brent Bishop, seems right out of a Louie L'amour novel. Long, lean and handsome, he and his beautiful wife Noeleen, and three sons (Tyrel, Steven, and Matthew) keep up this beautiful 1500 ha ranch nestled into the western flank of Mt. Rupehu, an active volcano which last erupted in 1995. It is isolated and ruggedly beautiful and the views go on forever. Scattered around the ranch Brent and his sons have built three log cabins of douglas fir harvested off their land. Our reservation was for only one night, but when we saw the splendid structure in which we'd be staying we immediately asked for an extra day.

Ty and Rusty used a kayak to search the pond out front of the cabin for frogs and bugs.

Monday 980202

W awoke at dawn with sheep in the yard and the sun coming up over Ruapehu.

Brent invited us to join him, Matt and Steve at the wool shed for a session of sheep shearing, docking (castrating), crutching (cleaning up their dirty little bums), hoof clipping, and dipping. It is hard, dirty work and Ty and Rusty were duly impressed.

Later that afternoon we hiked into Lake Rotokura. Kaaren sat on a log and read while the boys went for a swim

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After the sun went down we were serenaded to sleep by the calls of 'More-pork' (a small owl) and frogs.

Tuesday 980203

An early morning departure. Brent and Martin stopped by to say goodbye (they were enroute to Wanganui to enroll Martin in boarding school).

South to Wellington. Arrived in plenty of time to catch Rusty's connecting flight back to Auckland. This guy's been such a trooper, we're going to miss him a lot. He's a great helper, smart, way too fearless, polite and a good buddy to Ty. This image of the two boys headed off into the woods to find a new butterfly will stay with us. Sad to say goodbye.

Checked into the Rafael Hotel. Dan and Kaaren explored the quay after dinner.

Wednesday 980204

Drove onto Lynx Ferry and departed Wellington at 1330. The boat is a huge catamaran that makes the passage across to Picton in 1.75 hours instead of the usual 3.5. Very stormy seas but the big cat punched right through the waves and Dan hardly complained at all about being seasick.

And now we're on . . .

The South Island, N.Z. . . .