New Zealand- November 21

I LOVED New Zealand!
I did not want to leave this beautiful place.  The cab driver from the airport advised Bill that the thing to do is rent a car.  We arranged it through the hotel (very easy!) and we were off.  luckily Bill and I are used to driving on the other side of the road (I don't say "wrong" side of the road anymore).  So getting around was easy.
Our first day we wanted to go to the "glow worm caves."  A "must do" in New Zealand is the glow worms.  I put that at the top of the list.  I had to convince the others.  
The pitch-black caves are lit up with little glow worms all over the place.  I love fireworks, Christmas lights--anything that glows in the dark.  So, this was great.


We stayed on the North island of New Zealand in Auckland.  here is a shot of the city square where lots of shoppers, like Caroline and I, go.

Here is Bill and Tommy with our rental car.

The glow worm caves were about 2.5 hours from Auckland.  We had a beautiful drive.  I had no idea there were so many sheep and cows there!  Apparently there are 12.5 sheep to every person.  
We stopped at a little cafe and had lunch.


I will just share the photos, no explanation is necessary, just amazing.

 We took a walk down the road while we were waiting for lunch to be prepared.  It was a beautiful spring day.

 

We stopped on the side of the road to take this beautiful picture.

When we finally got to the caves, we had to walk through the sheep-filled hills to get to the hole in the ground (literally) and climb down into the caves.
It was a 4-hour "caver" adventure.  Really fun, water filled, sorry COLD water filled caves.
We had to get into wet suits.  They did the trick though.  The funny thing is that we had not originally planned to go swimming in the caves so none of us brought towels or bathing suits...  I will let you contemplate that.
We had a blast.  Caroline was great.  Her tiny body could fit through everything.  She wasn't afraid at all.  She loved it.  I will do this one again...

Here we are about to go down to the caves.  They gave us a CD with pictures from inside the cave.  Can't find it at the moment, maybe I will share it with you later when I find.

W had an amazing time.