Today our main attraction was, unfortunately, the longest drive on the North Island: six hours from Lake Taupo to Wellington. Luckily we were able to punctuate the long drive with fun side trips. As you know, we love side trips. Our drive south from Lake Taupo took us first through Tongariro National Park, New Zealand’s first national park.

Recognize that haunting sillhouette? That is Peter Jackson’s inspiration for Mount Doom, called Mount Ngauruhoe. Ngaruhoe is tapu (sacred) to the Maori, so they were unable to film on the actual mountain peak. Far off scenes of Mount Doom were either CGI or a model, or a combination of the two. Some close up scenes were filmed on the slopes of Ruapehu. You can go a decent way up both mountains, and the track (hike) between them is one of the most popular in New Zealand – you need reservations just to walk on it.

Mount Ruapehu from afar. After taking some photos, we continued south through the park and followed our guidebook to Tauro Ski Area, on the southern part of Ruapehu. This is where they filmed many scenes taking place in Mordor, as well as some specific scenes the Two Towers of Gollum catching fish. And you might be laughing at our nerd dedication at this point. It’s a fun excuse to see parts of this strange and wild country we would never have bothered with otherwise, so nerd culture for the win!

Imagine this hill swarming with Orcs while Frodo and Sam blend in with their Elvish cloaks. YES. It was cold at the summit though, so we drove back down the windy steep road. We kept our keen elf eyes open to find kilometer marker 14, where our guidebook says Gollum caught a fish in a stream. Umm. Well then. Good thing Checkers and I have watched those movies a million times!

My only wish, to catch a fish, so juicy sweeeet! And we may be extrapolating here, but we think we found the Forbidden Pool as well, where Gollum catches a fish (he likes doing that) and is almost shot by Faramir’s men. Our guidebook told us to look for Mangawhero falls, and this is it.

Maybe? We thought so. Just imagine more of a waterfall with the secret cave behind it. Well, this is all we had time to see in the national park, so we finally rejoined what they deem state highways and continued south to Wellington. But was this is the end of the the Lord of the Rings side tours? I DON’T THINK SO.

This is the Rangatiki River, and also one of the four rivers they used to portray the River Anduín when the Fellowship canoes down towards Amon Hen from Lothlorien, and the conclusion of the Fellowship of the Ring. Coincidentally, the supposed tallest bungee jump in New Zealand, but it was closed.

From here, we had another three hours to go, and driving in New Zealand, while slightly more exciting than in the US (left side of the road, windy narrow highways, no streetlights), it is still driving. We arrived without incident in Wellington, and a long comfortable stay at Beachfront Bed and Breakfast awaited us.

*****Written by Laura*****

I remember when I was young, we had glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling to mimick the night sky. Simply a bit of phosphorescence, and I was transported to another realm. This was the same feeling that struck me as I looked up in a cave and saw… stars. Except they were actually bioluminescent bugs.

The Glow Worm caves are a big attraction here, and though we have explored caves before, we felt this was one spot we couldn’t miss.

The cave tour started at a synthetic cave entrance. A funny thing, really: they tried to make the cement look like sandstone.
We entered the ground through a giant sliding metal door. The temperature started to drop. In the darkness, yellow and white lights appeared in a giant spiral.

The beginning of the tour talked about cave formations as we went deeper into the Earth. Stalactites, stalagmites, cave curtains, you know the drill. Along the sides of the walkway, there were sensors that beeped aggressively when you got too close to the formations. Our guide joked that ninjas would drop down from the ceiling if it happened more than three times. Honestly, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the beginning. Before long, we arrived at what I really wanted to see.

The cave opened into a chamber, and above us there were bright teal stars. Of course, it wasn’t the night sky we were seeing but glow worms. They are very difficult to photograph without fancy equipment. They  are way, way brighter than this, and there are far more of them. If you’re curious, I highly recommend looking up better photos online. They are truly incredible.

We learned that glow worms are actually glow maggots. They are usually above running water in caves because they feed off of insects. The insects fly up to their bioluminescent light and get caught in their dangling strings.

These strings are made of mostly mucus. Gross. The mystique of glow worms was destroyed a little, but I am still fascinated by their strange glowing lives. I could have spent hours in that room. However, the tour continued. The next big room we went into was dubbed simply “the pretty room.”

So many cool formations!

My favorite was seeing the reflections in the pool. Yes, there’s a pool there.

The cave we were in, Ruakuri, was named as such from a Maori story. It translates to the cave of two dogs. There is a part of the cave that is sacred: it is a burial site. Tours do not go in that area any more. The cave itself was privately owned for years before being seized by the government. Eventually it was restored to the original owner who much later agreed to private tours if they took care of the cave and kept everything in good condition. He had put up this sign to ward off the curious, and it still stands.

One of the last walkways we went through was lit in blue.

It was named the Ghostwalk. Apparently some spooky ‘incidents’ happened down here.

Eventually we returned to the bright light of day and had a late lunch at a local cafe.

*****Written by Checkers*****

Volcanic rock is everywhere on the North Island. It is strange to read the geology books we brought, where all the dates are thousands, not millions of years. The features are complex, caulderas (*huge explosive volcanoes) on top of lava flows, and cones of pumice. Hydrothermal areas are common. Did you know New Zealand has a lot of geothermal power plants?

After the Maori experience at Whakarewarewa, we walked around their thermal area, seeing how the villagers learned the tourist trade early (1860’s), sharing their thermal springs with the European visitors. Smart!

Tubs at different temperatures for different purposes.
The thermal areas in the Taupo rift are often privately, or tribally owned. Although they feel a lot like Yellowstone, with thermal springs, geysers with beautiful pools, and gurgling mud pots, each area is managed by a different group.

That afternoon, we went to the Craters of the Moon – because of the park of the same name in Idaho is one of our favorites – and found out how different the moon is on the other side of the Earth!

Look at all the water, the plants! In Idaho, the park with this name is black basalt flows and lava tubes, desolate.

Great colors in the hydrothermal fields, too

And a fairly easy walk for us travelers.

We got back to our resort in the town of Taupo, on Lake Taupo, which is a big crater formed by a cauldera, surrounded by volcanoes, and took pictures of the water fowl:

See the ducklings? They are almost pure black – far darker than ducklings in Colorado!

And we don’t get black swans in Colorado, either!

This is Ruapehu – used in filming the Lord of the Rings as a stand-in for Mt. Doom, the close up shots of the hobbits climbing up to destroy the Ring, as seen from our window of the hotel!

******written by Clare******

The Maori culture and its history are a huge part of New Zealand. Many names of towns, signs, and other information can be found in the language, which has been one of the official languages of NZ since 1987. Of course, the relationship between the Maori people and the colonizing Europeans has not always been great, but it does seems like overall the two cultures try to understand one another in earnest. The Maori culture developed over time from Polynesian settlers arriving on the islands sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE. European settlers did not arrive until the mid 1800s.

We wanted to learn more about the Maori culture, especially since it was where the art of poi originated. Being outsiders, it is difficult to reach into another culture without coloring it with our own bias. We attended a tourist attraction called The Living Maori Village knowing full well that it could be just as exploitative as some of its counterparts in America. However, we were pleasantly surprised. The set up may have been a bit cheesy for the performance, but the performers all clearly loved what they did. All we can hope is that through sharing their culture, they can educate others without watering it down.

We saw traditional dances, a love song, a fierce Hakka, and poi and stick dances. The performances were all incredible, and we took few photos, preferring to soak it all in.

Short poi were used solely for contact, to beat out different rhythms. Long poi were used in movements more recognizable to modern flow art, and were evocative of specific animals and other natural or spiritual phenomena. Both poi and stick were arts of training, and improved dexterity and coordination as well as being beautiful to watch.

The village itself displayed mostly post-European arcitecture, although Maori carvings often adorned the buildings. The best carvings were reserved for the Ancestral Meeting House, where they told a story of a tribe’s history.

The Maori used the resources around them. This tribe developed around a geothermal hotspot. The heat from the pools was used to cook food, as well as for bathing and washing. The entire village seemed to fill with steam as we wandered about.

There were also some geysers.

We took a short hike.

When we left the village, I took one last look at the entrance. The arch is a war memorial.