In transit for about 1 hour at Brisbane airport in Australia
Upon reaching Auckland, we picked up our pre-booked rental car, and drove off to Otorohanga.
Evening/night: After a brief stop at Otorohanga for groceries at Woolworth's and dinner of (McCain's) fish n chips, we found our pre-booked accomodation at Waitomo Caves (name of the town). Later, we were to discover that Woolworth's is like, the most expensive among the other supermarkets (New World, PaknSave, FoodMall).
See the travel guide book on the bed? I'd borrowed it from NLB, and after we left this town, I'd discovered it was missing from my luggage! It must have somehow slipped through the gap at the far edge of the bed and sat under the bed, but more about this later.
The lodge by day (must be day 3 liao!?!)
Next door is all farm land - we could see and hear the moo-ing calf running after his mommy!
Home recycling at the lodge - it's a common practice in NZ
We drove around to the scenic places; at Waitomo Caves domain
The Marokopa Falls, after a 10-min walk through very cool forest area
The Piripiri Caves were too dark and too wet for our miniscule torches to guide us in safely, so we had a picnic lunch at the scenic surrounding instead. :)
Pineapple lumps, a special confectionary of Kiwi origins. It sometimes come in the form of Chocolate Fish.
Quite nice to eat!
NZ is really a fern country. No wonder the NZ milk powder brand is called Fernleaf
Day 4: Checked-out and before leaving, we met Amy's dog Lily, who sometimes goes to work with her. Amy works at the lodge and was a big help in saving me from having to pay NLB for the lost library book.
Last look at the lodge at Waitomo Caves
Edit: I forgot to mention - in the evening, we went to one of the Waitomo Cave domain / park to look at glow worms along the river. Only visible in the dark, these tiny blue-hued worms would glow / twinkle brightly as they go about their usual wormy business.
