Tour de New Zealand

Yesterday, the church sponsored me a 1 day tour of the north island of New Zealand. I was very pleasantly surprised! I really want to thank Auntie Angela, Sarah, Yi Wen & all those who have made this possible. I appreciate it very much!

I hope they work me much harder now…

Anyway, so here’s the travel log.
I had to wake up at 6am to travel to the location where the coach was slated to pick me up. We traveled up north to 2 places that holds 3 attractions. Firstly I went to Waitomo. Their big attraction is the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. It’s really cool I tell you. We actually went into the limestone caves which is underground and is really cold! You actually see the stagmites and stalactites. A bunch of them even dripped water onto me! We had to venture really deep and the lighting was really dim to create that kind of cave like atmosphere. The coolest part was when we took a boat through the river that runs though the cave. The cave was totally dark so that we could see these interesting glow worms. Their larvae clings onto the cave ceiling and gives off light. Hence when the boat travel through the total darkness, the cave roof just looks like a galaxy of stars! Sadly, we weren’t allow to take pictures inside the cave. However, I found a picture just to let you know how it looks like!

Next, I went to Rotorua. It was futher up north. The bus journey was so long that my butt went numb… Here are some pictures I took through out the entire bus journey. I was the only tourist that was snapping pictures of the hills. I think for the other tourists that hail from Japan and America, these shots are normal stuffs.

Don’t you think the landscape is so beautiful that it looks so fake? Especially the last one, it looks like Teletubbies’ La La Land! Note: those little things you see are either cows, sheep, or both. The farms are scatter all over the place.

Anyway, I arrived at Agrodome. That place is basically a we-farm-all-types-of-animal kind of farm. Took quite some pictures and feed the ostrich even… but its all in my other camera. (These pictures I’m posting are all taken with my phone.) Will post it if I have the time. Managed to see dumb sheep, huge buffalo-like cows, sheep dogs, ostrich, llamas (Raphael, I will definitely post that picture up.) , ducks, pigs and all sorts of animals. There was a light drizzle so I was really freezing. I got to see sheep sheering as well.

God’s favor was upon me. As we departed, the rain let up and we made our way to Te Puia to see the famous Pohutu Geyser. The whole geyser scenery was so beautiful that it made the whole trip feel so unreal! I actually pinched myself to check if I was dreaming! Being the depraved Singaporean, I never had the chance to see such things in my life! Below are some of the pictures and a video of the geysers erupting together. I waited 10mins just to see it erupt!

P.S: For all of the pictures, you have to click on them to see the enlarged version. That is where their true beauty lies.

Erupting

A video I took while starring out of the window. (Ignore the TV sound)

~ by Zachary on March 12, 2008.