Tuesday 7th October – Golden Springs to Wellsford
Having missed the geyser’s eruption the previous day we headed to a different geyser. This one had several other attractions with it and we decided it was too expensive and headed off. The weather was absolutely terrible with almost monsoon like rain. When we arrived at Waitomo caves there was little improvement and the activities that I wanted to do in the caves had been cancelled due to the high water levels.
We carried on and stopped at “the Kiwi house” in Otorohanga. The place helpfully had free umbrellas which you could take around with you but fortunately the rain had subsided slightly by this point. For those who are not aware Kiwis are nocturnal animals so they were inside in a kind of fake nocturnal environment. There was only one Kiwi about but it was very entertaining as it raced up and down. It wasn’t like an animal going crazy with boredom in captivity, like many bears I have seen, but more like a bird possessed and boy could it move quickly. After laughing at the kiwi we headed around the park where there were numerous other birds and waterfowl. There were also some rather cool geckos which pleased me enormously.
We carried on up towards Wellsford through more stinking weather and even more stinking traffic in Auckland. Eventually we arrived in Wellsford and checked into a motel as it was getting late and nothing else was open. Fortunately the place was really nice and they had a super cute labradoodle puppy.