Day 50 - Wednesday 25th July - Waipu Cove to Whangarei

This morning we wanted to go and find the Waipu Caves and see some glowworms, so we did just this. We drove through the township of Waipu to the car park at the beginning of the walkway to the caves.

The walk we thought was about an hour was just crossing the rather muddy, wet field from the car park to the woodland on the far side. The caves were actually directly behind the first line of trees!! 

The caves were amazing, it was incredibly dark (as you would probably expect!!) but the photos came out better than we could see when we were in there. We did see loads of glowworms which was very exciting, in the complete darkness looking up there are pinpricks of light all over the ceiling.

Luke is very excited by an adventure into caves

Inside the caves

The cave entrance from inside the caves

The stalactites 

Stalactites

The cave ceiling

The stream which flows out of the caves

Ruth at the cave entrance

From the caves we drove north to the capital city of the Northlands area, Whangarei. In Whangarei we drove the top of Mt Parihaka where you get fantastic views over the city and the winding river.

The Whangarei River and city

Also in Whangarei, we visited the AH Reed Kauri Park. Kauri is a native New Zealand tree which are often quite ancient tree that grow very tall, straight up and have huge trunks. We saw a few really big trees as well as some waterfalls, the biggest being the Whangarei Falls.

Luke jumps out from behind a tree pretending to be a Maori

Us at a big Kauri tree

The smaller waterfall

Looking up a Kauri tree

Whangarei Falls

At the Whangarei Falls we found a very friendly campsite at the top end of the falls where we will spend this evening, with a troop of traditional Maori singers, who we might get to hear practising for their competition laters.