08.08.06
Day 3 Glowing …
Set off very early (about 6.45 a.m) 
to head for Rotorua and the geothermal regions !!!!
We stopped off first at the Waitomo caves – famous for all the glow worms hanging from the ceiling !
We arrived at just the right time as there was a coach load of Japanese tourists who pulled up behind us who were having the tour in Japanese – so Murray and I got our own guide to our selves!! 
he was called Mark and was really good …
The caves were something else – the limestone was white not the sludgey grey we have at home … and the stalactites hung like icicles … 
One of the main features of these caves is a cavern called The Cathedral – the acoustics in here are world reknowned – infact Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has sung there and commented on the purity of the sound – and I have to agree with her 
– well if its good enough for Kiri to belt out a tune its good enough for me 
Apparently they do Christmas Carol concerts in there which would be quite something to be part of …
You then get a boat ride through the Glowworm Grotto which was surreal – lots of little tiny blue lights in the ceiling and total silence 
apparently the local Maori tribe wouldn’t go near the place for years because of the atmosphere and you could understand it it was quite other worldly – only the chefs knew about what was in there …
Sadly you can’t take pictures in there – but you do get your pic taken as the boat re-emerges – we look very ‘touristy’ on it 
the site Waitomo Caves might give you a taster though ….
From here we drove down the road to the Arauni Cave – where you can take pics …
Here some of the formations had names like the ‘Two Old Maori Women’ – which were two large formations which were brownish in colour and from an angle did look like two old women in shawls hunched over – when we got up close to it Murray said it looked like chocolate rice pudding 
.
The rock in the caves looked like melted candle wax – in fact the ceiling in some places made me think of candle making with lots of taper candles hanging down … all very beautiful… 
From here we headed for Rotorua which was to be our base for the next couple of days …
Lovely motel room (with private spa pool ! 
)
The first port of call was the Rainbow Springs Nature Park (on Fairy Springs Rd – lovely names 
)
Rainbow Springs
It was going dark when we got there (and it goes very dark here!) so the walk was even more atmospheric – lots of Rainbow Trout in the stream – huge things !
But the highlight here was getting up close and personal with a Kiwi – and I don’t mean Murray!!!! 
They have a special area set aside where Kiwi eggs are incubated and hatched and the Kiwi are then raised ready for release back to the wild – we got to see 3 of them really really close up – of course its very dark and you have to be really really quiet
We were the only 2 humans in there at the time so the Kiwi didn’t notice us at first so we got to have a good look – they are really very timid little things …
We then took the Gondola up the side of Mount Ngongotaha (an extinct volcano 
) for dinner – a nine course affair !!!! (well if you want it to be – but Veggies can be excused!!!!) Deserts to die for though … a gorgeous melt in your mouth berry moussey thing which if I’d seen first would have just had that!!! 9 courses of it!!!! 
and I got to try Hokey Pokey Ice Cream – which I must admit I did think M had made up but no its real … and very very good!!! 
– sort of like pieces of Crunchie in very vanilla ice cream …
We then hit the spa bath which knocked me out completely …. 