New Zealand North Island

i know i left a lot of you hanging for quite a while. Traveling kind of takes you away from your routines and introduces you to a whole new exciting way of living. For someone like me who wants to experience everything my time was completely filled up. There was hardly any time at all for internet stuff and admittedly i never missed it.

i was mostly a mad photographer and took over 3500 pics before dousing my camera while trying to ford a river to get to Cleopatra's pools. Fast action saved the sim card but not the camera which i left in a trash can in New Zealand. I did still have my trusty Ipad so not all was lost. Over the next few days i'm going to put up a small sample of the wonderful world we encountered on our travels through that magical world.

Honestly, i didn't want to leave, it really is a nature lovers paradise. There was so much to do in five weeks we couldn't do it all. So i'll start with the beginning of the trip on the North Island.

Waitomo Caves where the glow worms live

Trail to Caves...the worms are really larvae

Lichen at Caves...the larvae glow in the dark

The actual cave pics were crappy and i've deleted them but it is a magical place and it had the most glow worms we saw anywhere.

Very Narrow Tunnel on the Forgotten Highway

Huge tree on Forgotten Highway and the flashy red rental car!

View from the Forgotten Highway

Loo on the Forgotten Highway

Fumaroles at Tongariro National Park

Scotch Broom which is invasive but so beautiful, the greenies want to get rid of it.

Hiking the Tongariro Crossing

Volcano on Tongariro Crossing Hike

Trail and stream on Tongariro Crossing hike

Art coming up behind me on Tongariro hike

View out over the basalt on Tongariro hike

Vista on Tongariro Crossing hike

Foliage on Tongariro Crossing hike

Volcano on Tongariro hike

It was chilly there so we were bundled up.

Art thought this was a good idea

Sunset at Turangi

Turangi Backpackers our first shock but turned out great

Tongariro River early morning...saw our first Fantail(a bird) here

Bridge over Tongariro River

Trail alongside Tongariro river

Black Swan we thought he was special then we saw thousands.

Lake Rotoaira

Cooling off in Lake Rotopounamu after hiking in 45 mins.

Lake Taupo

Lake Taupo

Don't want to bore you so i'll post more over the next few weeks.