Day 165 Waitomo, Raglan

Today we are finishing up yesterday's plan and continued driving to Raglan.  While we were getting ready to go I started chatting with the couple in the next van.  When he said they were from Peterborough, Ontario I couldn’t help myself.  I tried to stop it but it came out anyways.  The old preverbal  “ Do you know so and so” .  In this case it was John and Kim Kasperski and they did know them.  John (retired) and Kim are both teachers along with Vicki. What are the odds.

Colin and Vicki Wraight are vacationing here before they go to Australia for a period of time.  We spent quite a bit of time chatting with them before we finally had to get ready to leave. They are nice people and we hope they have a great vacation.  Who knows, we may even run into them the next time we are in Peterborough visiting Kim and John.



Colin & Vicki Wraight with Kathy



We finally got packed up and out of the holiday park but before we left the area we wanted to do a short hike that was recommended to us.  It is rated as one of New Zealand’s best short walks. It was only about 5 kilometers down the road and was call the Ruakuri Bushwalk.

This walk took less than an hour and is one of the  most diversified short hikes we have been on.  It started with a well groomed path along side of a small river.  I thought it was going to be a nice leisurely walk through the bush with the shade giving us some protection for the heat. 

That didn’t last long.  I forgot for a moment that we were in New Zealand but the stairs quickly reminded me. It didn’t take long, with the stairs and the heat to work up a sweat.  Actually Kathy informed me that she was perspiring.  Yours truly, I was sweating.

We were in a limestone gorge with a river running through it.  As a result there were many caves and indentations in the rock.  There were short, narrow tunnels that we had to walk through to stay on the track.  There were huge natural bridges like the one we saw yesterday at Mangapohue.  It was quite an experience.

When we left the bushwalk we decided we deserved a Mochachino so we stopped at the info centre which had a café.  This is where the famous Waitomo Caves  with the glow worms are located.  We thought that we would give it one more chance to talk ourselves into taking another tour.  So we had a drink, talked it over and decided not to partake.  We had done a caves tour earlier and really didn’t need to see a worm that glowed.  So we headed on. 

We pretty much headed straight to Raglan as it was now close to 1PM.  I am not sure how that day got away from us but it did.  The drive to Raglan was over terrain very similar to what we had been seeing for the last day or two.  Very green, very lush, very hilly.

As a result of not stopping we arrived in Raglan in time to have an early dinner which led to an early evening.  We will spend some time exploring the area tomorrow.