Day 50 – Waitomo – 3 November 2017

As we didn’t have much time in Auckland the night before, we got up early and set out about 8am for a walk around Auckland to see as much of the city in the limited amount of time we had! On the way we also did our first shop for bread, milk, cheese and the usual bits of food and drink to keep us going for the next few days.

Though it was overcast we didn’t get any rain until we got to Mount Eden, our next stop. The Eden area looked really nice and interesting, but we didn’t stop for coffee or breakfast, but rather headed up Mount Eden for a walk, which was a bit more strenuous than I expected – but well worth it for the views! Of course the views would have been much more impressive if it wasn’t so rainy and misty, but that’s pretty much expected from NZ from the sound of it!

From Mount Eden we pretty much did the motorway to Waitomo until the car’s satnav pointed us down a very, very scenic country lane that we were glad we took as it was much prettier than the motorway would have been. At Waitomo we checked into the Waitomo Caves Hotel and it was clear why this was our cheapest accommodation on the trip so far! Nothing particularly wrong with it, just old and our room was very smelly with poor WiFi!
It started raining in earnest shortly after we arrived which meant it was the perfect time to spend in the Waitomo Glowworm Caves! We booked a tour online for 16:30 and as I read on their website that you’re not allowed to take any pictures on the tour through the caves I left my camera at home, but we were allowed to take pictures once outside the cave system. The tour was really good, with the glowworms of course the highlight of the tour and 45 min is just the right length of time to spend down in the caves. It was still raining when we got out so we had some drinks and dinner at The Tomo Bar and yet another early night!