New Zealand 2015; Waitomo

The next morning we got on the road to head to a small town called Waitomo which is famous for its caves with glow worms inside of it.
But first we had two stops...one to see sheep, and one to see kiwis.

There are more sheep than people in New Zealand and if you look at the Hobbiton pictures from the last post sometimes you might be able to see white dots on the hills outside Hobbiton.

We stopped of at a sheep show to see all the different varieties of sheep and to watch a display of sheep shearing and a sheep dog at work.

After the sheep show, we drove for another hour or so and went to a bird sanctuary that features New Zealand's national birds the kiwi.  I wasn't able to take any pictures of the bird because it is a nocturnal creature meaning the room was kept in darkness the entire time.  The bird that we saw was very aggressive towards its handler as she tried to feed it because Kiwis are very territorial.

Not my picture...just showing you what we saw. 

 Here are some other creatures we saw in the bird reserve.

After the bird reserve we continued our drive up to Waitomo.  We only spent one night in this one-street town and I unfortunately don't have any pictures from this day (at the moment).  This is where a number of our group decided to try something called Black Water Rafting. 
This is when you have an inner tube and you traipse through the Waitomo caves looking at the glow worms that live inside.  We walked through the caves and even jumped backwards off of a few short waterfalls.  Then we all linked together and floated down the river in pitch black to look at glow worms.  Here is one Google image of what we saw.

New Zealand 2015; Rotorua

Our next stop was the town of Rotorua and we spent two nights here.  Our first day was a chance to experience different aspects of the Maori culture. 
Rotorua is a town that sits on a large geothermal area and constantly smells like sulfur but it was very pretty.   

Geothermal Mud Pool

Maori Village on the outskirts of Rotorua

 After the Maori village the bus dropped a few of us off at a gondola that went up a mountain in Rotorua for some luge. 

The Luge ski lift.

People below me on their luges.

 After a quick lunch we went over to the OGO area.  I didn't do this one but I watched as people rolled down the hill in giant balls.

The lake view from our hotel.

Some local birds looking for food in the lake bed.

The Contiki bus.

Maori show after a Maori feast for dinner in the hotel.

Even some of our guys were called up to participate.

The next day, my roomies and I (Jules and Tayla) decided to have a relaxing morning by walking around the town and do a little bit of shopping before grabbing a quick lunch.  And then we were on to Hobbiton! An hour's drive outside of Rotorua.  I knew I definitely wanted to do Hobbiton before reaching New Zealand since I knew it was a still existing movie set. 

Tayla and Jules pretending to be Hobbits.

Contiki Hobbiton group

Having a beer inside the Green Dragon.

All the fruit and vegetable plants were real and have yielded vegetables. They have gardeners on staff to take care of the plants.  These vegetables on the wheelbarrow are fake though.

The view of the Party Tree and the Green Dragon from Bag End.  New Zealand is going through a drought, that is why the hills in the background are brown.  They crew work very hard to keep Hobbiton looking beautiful and green for tourists.

That was the end of our time in Rotorua. The next day when we were leaving to head up to Waitomo we made stops to visit some animals...in the next post.