Caves, Glowworms, Ziplines!

 Our last few days in New Zealand saw us spending a wonderful  afternoon/evening/morning with people from JT's past, seeing glowworms in caves and zip-lining!

The side story on JT's friends:  JT grew up in Frobisher Bay, North West Territories (now Iqaluit, Nunavut Territory).  He and Tuck Jackson went to school together there.  Tuck has been living in New Zealand for about 35 years now!  In previous lives JT and Tuck were brother-in-laws!  Fast forward to now, Tuck and his x, Debi Lewis, both live in the Auckland area now and are good friends now (their son Palmer also lives in Auckland).  Debi and her partner, Howard, have a beautiful home in the suburb of Hillcrest that they have had for 21 years now. 




On Monday we headed north from Hamilton to Hillcrest.  An easy drive of about 130km, which took us about 1hour 40minutes (travel time increases as you near Auckland!)  We pulled up and we were greeted by Debi and Howard's dog, a 140lbs brindle coloured Great Dane / Mastif cross!  An intimidating canine to say the least.  Hugo turned out to be a big lovable baby!  However, I wouldn't want to enter his territory without an invitation from Debi and Howard!  He is a pretty potent security system!  


Debi & Howard's home was built in 1928 and was first owned by a doctor who had an office there.  The interior still holds its character from almost 100 years ago!  Debi and Howard have done an awesome job and keeping ambiance and charm of the grand old place.  They have also invested numerous hours to the exterior and yard that now looks like something you would see in a magazine!  When they bought the place they didn't realize there was a pool it was so overgrown and neglected!

Howard is a UK trained chef and put a great lamb roast on for us with all the fixin's!  It was an awesome meal and we had a fantastic time getting to know our gracious hosts and new friends.  

Munchie, Palmer, Howard, Tuck, JT, Shannon,  Debi




We spent the night at the casa on the hill and went out for a farewell breakfast at the Fika With Me cafe just a hop skip and jump from the casa!  Had a great breakfast!  

After breakfast we headed back to Hamilton.  About 20 minutes down the road someone discovered they did not have their phone!  So a quick call to Fika and we located Munchie's phone!  about 20 minutes later, we headed out, again, for Hamilton.  


Tuesday, our last full day here, we headed off to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.  It was a relatively short drive (for an Albertan!).  The 71 km took us just over an hour.  On our long straight highways on the Canadian Prairies, a rule of thumb is you will take about one hour to travel 100 km.  
Our guide for the tour was the great grand daughter of the Maori chief who opened the caves to tours in 1889 after he and a British surveyor had first explored them in 1887.  
Our guide was very knowledgeable about the caves, the geology involved in their formation and their current residents, the glowworms!


After our cave tour we went across the road and tried our hand at zip-lining!  Rob and Kelly are the owners/operators of Waitomo caves Zipline Park.  

    

You may notice one of our party of 4 is missing!  My Munchie does not do well with heights!  Nor does she do well with confined spaces!  Early in our life together, on a vacation in Barbados, we actually took a tour of the Harrison Caves.  You enter the caves on a tram, its like going into a huge domed sports arena!  Well my poor darling bride did not like it one bit, and there were tears!  So while the 3 amigos did both the Waitomo Caves and zip-line, Munchie was happy and content to relax and read her book!

After the zip-line, we stopped at the Kiwi House in Otorohanga to see if we might see one of these mainly nocturnal birds.  We were rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of one!  Apparently they are quite territorial and you will rarely see more than 2 at any one time.  The adults even chase off the chicks after about 10 days!  Nature does prepare the chicks for this.  They are born with all of their feathers and are able to run within hours of hatching.  The Kiwi House also had a number of other critters and birds for us to see.  




This was our last adventure here in New Zealand.  Wednesday morning we checked out of our VRBO and hit Honey & Ginger for breakfast.  We made a stop at an antique auto museum in Hamilton before heading to the airport. 
We are now sitting waiting to hop on our 14 hour flight back to Canada, so I am signing off!

Cheers to all, catch you on my next blogg!

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