Te Kuiti/Waitomo caves/Auckland

We had some time to kill in Waitomo so we went to the 'shearing shed' and watched an Angora rabbit being sheared. It was a very disturbing experience! Look at this poor bunny. Doesn't he look sad?
The next pic shows one of the poor creatures on the rack after he's been done. The device also rotates so they can shear underneath. Very bizarre.


Here we are at the entrance to a cave in which there are millions of glow worms. The worms are actually maggots.
Here are the fishing lines attached to the maggots. They use these to catch insects to eat.

Here is a rather large Weta living happily in a cave. They are like very large grasshoppers.

Here are the bones of a Moa. The bird was hunted to extinction by the Maoris hundreds of years ago. They were like a very big emu.

Us at the entrance to another cave. We just can't get enough of them! The following day we did a more adventurous trip and went caving for about 2 hours, including black water rafting on inflatable tubes - very cool! The trip was very enjoyable and quite physical. We squeezed through gaps and swam through cave water - all very Indiana Jones!!!

Gorgeous sunset in Te Kuiti at the farm hostel.

Now after many months and many adventures we're back in Auckland. Can you see what it says at the bottom of the big crater? This is a pic from the top of Mt Eden.

We are going diving at Poor Knights in a couple of days and then it's back to Auckland before we fly to Sydney on Tuesday. Wow! Where have the last 6 months gone. We will miss you NZ.