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Hi everyone,
After an amazing few days in Rotorua we arrived in a rather wet Taupo. When driving in we stopped over the popular Huka Falls, but due to the weather the water was brown from the mud off the river banks, therefore we didn't get to see the true water quality it is known for. We spent the night by the lake waking up to more rain, so we decided to leave early after a quick dip in the really warm water in lake Taupo's hot water beach.
We drove for approximately 2 hours before reaching Taranaki on the west coast. To get there we took the forgotten world highway, it was an exceptional drive. The journey took us through mountains, forests and farmland. We both said how it reminded us both of various movie locations, such as Jurassic Park, Lord of the rings and Harry Potter. The areas we drove through were steaming with wild life. We saw a number of birds including Hawks and Kingfishers which we have both never seen before.
The region Taranaki is named after mount Taranaki Volcano and is also known as Mount Egmont. It is 2518m tall and was the stand in for Mount Fuji (from Japan) in Tom Cruises 'The last Samurai'. Once again because of the weather we were unable to see it. Taranaki is also very popular for it's surf. The majority of surf spots are reached by slight detours through and across farmland. Whilst looking for surf spots Me and Clare spotted a wild black cat, it was the size of a small dog. Later on that evening we got chatting to a local Kiwi, who was a very interesting person to talk to. He told us alot about farming and we learnt stuff neither of us knew. We mentioned about the black cat we spotted and he told us there has been a number of similar sightings in the past. The following day we woke up early to look for more surf spots. We found one called Stent Rd and I went for my first surf since being in New Zealand. The sea temperature is comparable to England in June, so I was quite used to it. After my surf we went to a few more beaches before making our way to Waitomo.
Waitomo is very famous for it's underground caves. The next day we went to the Glow worm caves, it was such a different experience walking through these dark underground caves made up of naturally formed limestone layers. We also got to go on a boat ride on the underground river, we floated through the caves in the pitch black and as we looked up there were loads of little tiny glow worms, they looked like small neon lights. It was so unusual, unlike anything we had seen before.
We are currently in Raglan which is known for it's world famous waves. The last few days have been immense here and yesterday we got to watch another surf contest. There were some really talented surfers, surfing some of the nicest 6-8ft waves, making the contest even better to watch. Me and Clare hung around for some freebies, Clare got a nice hat and I got some sunnies, music cd's and some fins for surfing. Today we were at Manu point again and I went for two surfs, one in the morning and one this evening. The surf was huge around 10-12ft, we have seen some crazy rides today and some serious wipe outs including three broken boards.
Hope you are all ok, we shall be seeing you very soon, lots of love Kevin and Clare.
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