From 90 Mile Beach to Waitomo

Tana Mahuta

A river flowing through one of the many limestone caves.

A wee "cave pixie" at the end of a cave

First of all....sorry for the delay in the update. It appears to be really difficult to get a computer that will allow you to upload pictures to the Net (unlike South America, which was easy).

We left Northland, to go to Waitomo, which is a huge area of limestone caves. On the way there, we passed through one of the many Kauri forests. We stopped off to see Tana Mahuta, which is a 1200 year old "god of the forest". It is 6 metres wide and rises to almost 18 metres to the lowest branches....in other words...pretty damn big. Unfortunately, a week after we saw it, there was a great storm in Northland and all the top branches were blown off (luckily for us we were nowhere near though).

After we went to Waitomo and stayed a couple of days. We didn't go into any of the "illuminated caves" or the Glowworm caves....due to a combination of claustrophobia and cost, but we did do some of the walks around the area and got a feel of the area. I'm sure we will get a chance to see glowworms at a later date...cost and conditions permitting.

(We know, we know.....skinflints.....but we still have a bit of budget you know.)