Our stay at the dock in Tauranga was long, we arrived at 6:30AM and we didn’t sail until 5:30AM the next day. There was a reason for this timing, but I won’t go into this now. Suffice it to say we had plenty of time to take a nine hour tour and still explore the town.
Bob and I did separate tours, he went to the famous geo thermal reserves at the Rotoura and visited a kiwi reserve, I went on a super long bus ride to underground caves and saw beautiful formations of stalagmites and stalactites. A river flowed through the bottom of the caverns and boats were waiting for us. We boarded in the pitch dark, it was a wee bit eerie. As we silently floated in the dark we saw overhead, clinging to the cave ceilings, thousands of glow worms each emitting a tiny point of neon purple light. It was quite amazing.
After the caves we had a lovely lunch in the beautiful gardens of a large dairy farm called Crosshills, in Otorohanga, and toured the gorgeous French Provincial homestead. Afterward we visited a wildlife preserve and saw the nocturnal kiwi.
This area is rich with cattle and sheep farms, and lots of agriculture. The weather was quite comfortable and we saw the sun shine most of the day, a welcome sight.
More tomorrow,
Gail Niebrugge, landscape painter
