New Zealand Discoverer
Day Fourteen – 10 March 2012 – Day of the Worms
Weather: sun then cloud, 18
The Millennium has two dining areas. One for the paying guests and the other is the trough…I mean tour group area. LOL. Breakfast is the usual with non-creamy scrambled eggs, typical sausages and the cutest little pancakes. And a toaster that doesn’t burn toast.
Yeah, I was daring again today. I had toast.
I check my emails and get a text from a brother in law wondering where my shovels are (buried under the 20+ cm they just got, more than likely) and he was wondering where the key to my snowblower was. I told him it was with me.
No one uses my $3000 Honda snowblower but me.
We board the bus for 8:15 and bid farewell to the caldera, climbing the rim towards Auckland. Being that the area has more cattle than sheep, she starts telling us how the animals are bred but can’t find the right words for the delicate parts. She says there’s just something about trying to explain cow reproduction to us on a Saturday morning that just doesn’t work.
It’s Saturday? Okay.
Then she says John, the driver, will finish the lecture and all I hear from the front of the bus is “not bloody likely.”
She goes on to tell us about the two breeds – the black and white which give about 20 litres of milk a day (10 litres twice a day) and the brown which give milk with more cream and are used for cheese and powdered milk usually.
And here we all thought the brown cows gave chocolate milk.
They stop milking them in May so that they can calf and the farmer takes care of maintenance and stuff while he waits for the calves to be born. Then it’s back to the barn they go.
The bus bug hasn’t seemed to have taken any new victims the last few days but a lot have the left over cough so that at times, we could conduct a symphony on the bus from coughing.
I’m working on O Canada in G minor.
Nellie tells us the next town, Tirau, used to be called Oxford but that it reverted to its original name. So, you all know the name of the next town.
Cambridge, of course.
There’s a lot of horse farms around here. Nellie tells us of a famous one called Sir Tristram from here and was pretty successful. His owner was offered millions of dollars for the horse – reports say up to 20 million – but he refused. He said that selling the horse would be like selling off a member of the family.
Now, I’m one of seven kids and think, for $20 million, I have a couple brothers to spare.
In the end, the horse had to be put down after breaking a leg trying to mount a mare in 97. He did sire several successful race horses that have won the Melbourne Cup and other races.
Cambridge was an area where a lot of soldiers were granted parcels of land after the war. This area is also big kiwi farming area. The fruit came here as the Chinese Gooseberry and the locals perfected the growing techniques. It’s now grown worldwide. It is marketed as kiwifruit as marketers preferred to name it for the bird than to call it Chinese Gooseberry or melonette.
As we approach the glow worm cave area, Nellie reminds us to try the Hokey Pokey ice cream before we leave. And she reminds us not to get the name confused like one Korean woman who went into a shop and asked for some hanky panky.
Heh.
We arrive at the glow worm cave and follow our guide inside.
We’re told there is no photography inside but I remember my rafting experience and take mine with me anyway for exterior shots. We go inside a typical limestone cave with the floor nicely flattened with stone tiles. I imagine they do this because much of the cave is left dark and it makes walking easy.
Early on, we come across a hole off to the side that doesn’t appear to have a bottom. Our guide says it ends at the river below where we take a boat along a river to see the worms and that if we wanted to get there fast, jump.
No takers.
The guide takes us down stairs to where three stalagmites are in the floor and some stalactites are dripping on them from above. He called it the art gallery but also said they look like family. The largest one was the mother with a child on her back, a boy next to her and a dog at their feet. The father is off to the side and the last one is Sponge Bob Squarepants.
While we’re standing there, we’re getting dripped on. The guide says that is good luck.
We wonder if it does anything for head colds.
He goes on to say that if a stalactite falls on your head it’s bad luck.
Now, that will do something for a head cold.
He leads us into a large dark, nearly pitch black cavern and points up to some glow worms. They look like Christmas lights. Pretty neat. The guide shows us some more stalactites that are just starting and are no more than a few inches long and said they were 1000 years old.
The larger ones were at least 60,000 years old.
He points up at a hole about 10 metres above us and says that it’s natural ventilation and our emergency exit.
Heh.
Then he mentions the 2004 flood and shows us a brownish line in some of the stalactites and says the water reached that level. It was flooded for four days and they spent a week cleaning it up and were open again. He said it floods from time to time, but this was the worst they had seen.
Down in a pitch dark cavern, the guide shines his flash light on silver strands hanging from the ceiling and said they were the web of the glow worm. They look like thousands of little chandeliers. The guide tells us about their reproduction habits and the fact that the light comes from their butts. I didn’t catch it all. I was too enthralled by the webs.
From there, we go down to the boat to sail along the underground river. There’s no oars. The guide pulls us along using a rope above his head.
He asks us to be quiet as the noise can affect the worms, especially for the boat coming behind us. Can’t do much about the symphony of coughing, but people still spoke until the guide repeated twice for people to stay quiet.
The cave is one large cavern with thousands of glow worms on the ceiling. There are so many, it’s bright enough to tell where a large stalactite is coming down from the ceiling. It’s like looking up at the night sky with nothing but stars as bright as Venus. With everyone quiet and even the coughers swallowing their coughs, it was an amazing sight.
The guide does a circuit of the cavern then turns the boat into a low tunnel with daylight at the end. As we get close, he’s able to show us the actual worm, but it’s hard to decipher them from the rock. When we get close to the entrance, he says we can take pictures.
Ha! Knew I should have brought it.
The guide ties the boat up to the dock then points out a fish just sitting below the surface, not moving. He said that fish has been there for years.
We say, yeah, right, it’s a stuffed fish underwater. Nope, he said it’s real. And it looks real with just a slow wave of its tale.
We climb the steps to the gift shop, get a magnet and check the prices. It seems the closer we get to Auckland, the higher the prices are getting. We get aboard the bus for the short drive to Otorohanga for lunch. On the way, John tells us he has a little poem for us inspired by the glow worms. It goes like this:
I wish I were a glow worm,
cause a glow worms’ never glum,
how can you be gloomy,
when the sun shines out your bum.
Heh.
We pull into the one street town and Nellie gives us a quick tour. The pharmacy has become the centre of attention at every stop. She has recommended Irish Moss for those that are having a really hard time with their cough. I looked at the ingredients and their very similar to Buckley’s back home. Good stuff.
I hit McDonalds for lunch and free wifi and ass I walk back down the street, I notice an ambulance next to our bus.
Oh oh.
I get closer, pop into a shop for a fridge magnet, then approach the ambulance to see a woman on a gurney. I don’t recognize her. Whew.
Apparently, the woman was getting out of the truck behind us and slipped or tripped on the curb and injured herself. Someone else was saying she had a stroke, but the paramedics didn’t look to be in that much of a hurry and she was awake and alert.
We leave Otorohanga and Nellie tells us we have about 2 hours to Auckland. We start driving down some winding roads and you can feel the bus just want to do a wheelie. The bus is going in for maintenance tonight and John will get a chance to visit his wife for the first time in weeks.
We stop for some hanky panky…I mean hokey pokey ice cream an hour later.
When we’re about 50 km outside of Auckland, Nellie says we should be able to see the tower.
She can see it from the front and starts to give us our Auckland talk. It was named by the first governor for his former commander, Lord Auckland and he also named Mt Eden for Auckland’s place of birth. Mt. Eden is one of 48 volcanoes in the area. 46 are extinct. 2 are dormant.
The city just hit a population of 1.5 million (probably an influx of people from Christchurch added to that number). The port is the largest of the 13 ports in NZ and it’s the economic engine of the country. When it sneezes, our bus catches a cold.
Oh wait…
We drive into the city and Nellie points out the cone shaped hills around. We pull into a park and she points up at a statue on top of a column. He’s completely naked with a leg and arm stretched out and certainly parts dangling.
Nellie said it’s an interesting statue to see when it’s raining.
We drive towards the port and around the edge of the harbour until we pull into a park. Nellie gives us 15 minutes to get some pictures.
I visit the not-so-super loo and get a couple of pics of the Auckland skyline. It’s cloudy but very warm. Just right.
We get aboard for the ride to the hotel. Nellie points out a spot where we can see penguins if we want with any free time we have and they have a free shuttle too. Might be a consideration on my free morning here.
We drive along the port again and Nellie points out Queen Street. Awesome. We’re right next to 3 km of shops, shops and more shops. We pull into the Stamford Plaza and go in to get our keys. Everyone walks away and I’m standing there by myself, waiting. Then Nellie starts to walk away.
Yohoo!! Nellie!
Oops
I was forgotten. I get my key card – not for the penthouse unfortunately – and head for the elevators. One other couple is standing there as one of two elevator doors closes. They wait a few seconds then press the button and the same elevator door opens.
We think it’s us hitting the button too soon, so the door closes again and we wait a little longer and press the button. Then the other elevator opens. We stare at them and they try the button again and the door closes. Then we wait again, for at least 30 seconds, before he hit the up button. Then the first elevator opens and then the second elevator.
Finally one of us tells them to use their key card in the slot.
Oh, they all say.
It was like whack-a-mole elevator edition.
I finally get on the elevator and get to my room.
I figured out the TV. One note of advice – every plug has an on/off switch, so if something doesn’t seem to want to work, flip the switch. In the case of the TV, I had to turn on the power and the plug next to it which must have been for the cable box. Then I got crystal clear tv and even better, the Discovery Channel.
I checked out the internet. Free in the lobby for 30 minutes and one hour for 9 dollars. Best part, no data limit.
My room is much like the others with all the same amenities, except this one has a safe and robes. I think at this point I can honestly say that, generally, in New Zealand hotels that TT uses, you will find the TV, hairdryer, shampoo and stuff, iron, board, kettle (not coffee maker) with a selection of tea etc. And internet that you have to auction off your first born to buy. A lot of the hotels also had a microwave. And I’m pretty sure every hotel had laundry facilities where you could purchase some powder and tokens/coins and do your own laundry.
The extras that I didn’t see often were the safe and the robe.
I had three hours for dinner and decided to check out Queen Street. Three kilometres of shopping heaven. I was a little surprised to see so many souvenir shops and then realized that this is near where the cruise ships come in. I walked a few blocks but figure I could easily do the six kilometres on Wednesday morning for last minute shopping.
I picked up a fridge magnet for Auckland and went back to the hotel. I realized that since we will be coming back here on Tuesday so I can leave some luggage here for the two days and reduce the amount of luggage that poor ol’ John has to lug. So, I hauled out my duffel bag and piled if full of t-shirts and sweat shirts and fleece. Then I reorganized the rest of my luggage and went down to check out my free 30 minutes. I had to get a code from the reception so there was no chance to double up on the free stuff by using my phone and netbook. But that’s fine. The 1 hour for $9 isn’t bad for no restrictions. I’ll check that out after dinner.
I joined our group – now dubbed The Plague Bus – for dinner in the hotel. Two women going on to Australia for a cruise have been having a real problem – especially with a cough. I gave her my cough drops that have the numbing liquid in the centre and she said that helped a lot. I also had a bottle of throat spray that I use that has the numbing stuff in it. I’ve been using it all along and I think it helped keep my stuffed head from going to my chest. I still believe that the bug is allergies – to the different plants and pollen here and to the dust/dust mites on the bus. They symptoms of the sickest all were classic for allergies with the sneezing early on then a developing sore throat and then going down into a persistent cough. I never developed more than a slight congestion and had doubled up on my anti-histamines. Worth bringing along.
We had a set menu for dinner with choices. I didn’t like any of the appetizers (fish related) and she offered me a chicken corn chowder. Awesome. The main was steak and dessert was a table. Well, no, not the table. A table filled with desserts.
The table of expanding waistlines.
The chowder was delicious. The steak not quite as medium as they claimed but desserts were excellent. We chatted for a bit, but the sick wanted to sleep and I wanted my hour of internet, so we said our farewells to those who were going on and Nellie got her hugs and a lot of compliments from those leaving.
I went back to the room and dug out my computer and downloaded the like 10 photos I took today then used the rest of the time to label the White Island photos. More work needed there. And the videos will go up the next time I encounter unlimited internet. At this rate, that’ll be Vancouver.
Since I had a robe, I had a nice long hot shower and cuddled up on the bed with the computer….and no data limit. Life is good.
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