Exploring Waitomo Caves

After our glorious hike at Rangitoto, we made our way down to Waitomo. Waitomo is a small town with not much to do besides explore these AMAZING glow worm caves. We stayed at the Waitomo Caves hotel (which may or may not be haunted?) for just one night so we could have our caving adventure before driving on to our next adventure.

There are several different packages you can choose when it comes to exploring the caves. We went for the Black Abyss package, which included swimming, zip lining, tubing, climbing waterfalls, enjoying the glow worms and even abseiling down into the cave itself. I have to say, it was pretty awesome!

We started by getting suited up in a wet suit and booties and hopping on a bus. We made our way to the entrance of the cave and got a quick lesson on how to abseil. I think entering the cave may have been my favorite part! It was pretty scary to just lower yourself down into a cave through a not-very-big hole.

Once we made it in, it was time to zip line! The zip line wasn't very long, but it was kind of a crazy experience to zip line in the pitch black with a full cave of glowing worms (they are actually larvae, but glow worms sounds way less gross). They even told us to shout as we went down so we could wake them up for even more of a show!

Along the way, we got to swim up a legit river pulling our inner tubes behind us, only to be pulled back the way we came by our guide. We got to lay on our tubes, look up at the worms and just take it in. It was pretty spectacular.

We got to crawl through tiny cave areas, there was even a slide! It all culminated in climbing up 2 waterfalls to make our way out of the cave.

Some funny parts included: Enjoying a snack that included hot tang of all things. Why hot tang? We actually had two snack breaks. The other hot beverage was hot chocolate, so that was good. Maybe hot tang is a New Zealand thing?

Another part I feel like I should mention the bathroom situation. You're down in the cave for several hours and in a wet suit even longer. Spoiler alert: there are no bathrooms down in the cave. That means, yup you guessed it! nature peeing. It was so weird. They separate the boys and the girls, then have everyone turn off their headlamp and just go in the rushing water. Weirdest experience ever. I almost didn't include this bit, but if I'm being honest, it was one of the most memorable aspects, ha!

A cool long exposure picture taken down in the caves. 

jumping into the river with our tubes from about 8 feet up!

Anyway, after we made our way out of the cave, we rode the bus back to home base for a hot shower and a meal of soup and bagels. The whole experience was an absolute blast! if you are anywhere near Waitamo, you should absolutely stop by! If my caving adventure sounded a bit too involved, there are a whole host of other ways you can explore the caves.

If you'd like help planning your next adventure, visit my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com! 

Hiking Up A Volcano - Rangitoto Island

After we finished up at Kangaroo Island, it was time to make our way down to New Zealand. We decided to start our adventure in Auckland. Our main task? Hike a volcano! How cool is that? Rangitoto is a volcanic island off the coast of Auckland. To get there, we first had to clean our shoes (they had giant shoe-cleaning brushes) and board the ferry. The island has no pests or foreign animals/plants so they work hard to keep it that way with these shoe cleaning stations. They even had us double check our packs for animals! Weird! 

After a gorgeous, 30-ish minute ferry ride, we arrived. I gotta say, the island is gorgeous! We decided to do the summit trail and just make our way to the top. I thought it was funny how it was indicated as a paved, easy path and it certainly was not! It was anything crazy, but it was definitely steep and rocky in some places. Maybe Americans are wimps when it comes to hikes so I've come to expect ultra-easy paths if they are marked easy. Who knows.

Regardless the views from the top were breathtaking!

Along the way, we could see some piles of volcanic ash which was really, really cool. 

I've never had the chance to actually hike on a volcano, so I was really excited about this! You can kind of see the dip of the center of the volcano from the top, but it doesn't look like what you'd see in a movie. It just looked like the trees were lower than where we were on the rim - I couldn't get a good picture of it to give you some perspective, but trust me it was cool. 

Anyway, if you have a free day (we took something like 4 or 5 hours to ride over, hike and ride back) I highly recommend this hike! I loved spending time outside and in nature. It was a ton of fun.

If you'd like help planning your next adventurous hike, visit my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com. 

Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park

On our recent two-week jaunt through Australia and New Zealand we saw and experienced some amazing things, but I think the Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park was one of my favorite stops. I actually initially found Kangaroo Island because I was googling where I can hold a koala. I know, I know, cliche, but I've always wanted to hold one! I should add in a note here that I am quite passionate about ethical eco/animal tourism. I didn't want to give my business to a place that would mistreat animals in any way. Fortunately, I found Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park!

You can't book your koala holding ahead of time, so we headed to the park bright and early! It's a first-come, first-served system and is completely dependent on the koala's health and happiness. That means if a koala is sick or it's too hot out for the koala, they would cancel your holding and refund your money. I LOVE that mentality. At no point did I want to force a poor, tired koala to be held when it was far too hot out for them. Fortunately, we booked the first koala holding which meant the heat of the day had not yet hit! More on that later.

When we pulled up to the park there were very few cars in the parking lot - likely because of the early hour. We made our way into the park and were greeted with a cheerful g'day! As we were buying our tickets, the clerk gave us a little bag and said "Here's some food for the kangaroos and wallabees. You can just let yourselves on it when your ready." I knew there was a chance to feed koalas and wallabees, but I just assumed that was a paid experience. NOPE. It was included in our ticket! This was seriously awesome! You literally could just open the gate and let yourself in to pet, feed and hang out with these amazing animals. No supervision or anything! It was a crazy experience and so so so so fun!!

They also had periodic talks featuring different animals - koalas, dingoes, birds etc.  These talks were awesome, informative and sometimes interactive. The koala talk let you come into their pen and pet them while they relaxed on their trees. There were rules on how to pet them and certain ones that didn't enjoy being touched. I liked that they respected the animals while engaging the tourists.

Alright, back to the big event - Alfie!! AKA my new koala best friend. The caretaker gave me a few tips, handed me some tasty leaves and then it was time. I held Alfie like you would a baby and it was the best few minutes ever! He was so snuggly and chill and just adorable. As long as he had some tasty leaves to munch on, he really didn't seem to mind hanging out with me.

All in all, my experience at Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park was incredible. 10/10 would recommend and visit again. If you'd like some unique and exciting adventures in your life, check out my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.

Kangaroo Island

Our next stop took a bit of effort to get to, but it was well worth the trip! Kangaroo Island (often called KI) is off the southern tip of Australia, near Adelaide. To get to the island you can either book a flight (though there are very few flights and they are quite expensive) or you can fly to Adelaide, drive an hour and half then take a 45 minute ferry. We took the ferry. It did eat up almost a whole day of our trip, but this island was absolutely gorgeous. Let's review some of the highlights, shall we?

Beautiful KI Coastline

First, if you want to relax on a beach, this is the place! Man were the beaches absolutely gorgeous. Everywhere you looked there was spectacular shoreline views. Just be careful when driving (and you will need a car to get around this island!) as there were indeed wild kangaroos roaming about - we even saw wild koalas, echidnas, and GIANT lizards too.

My absolute FAVORITE stop of the entire trip was Kangaroo Island Wild Life park!! So much so that that will get it's own post. Here's a hint - I held a koala! More on that later.

While our "Villa" was right near the ferry port, we decided to venture out on a mini road trip to the far side of the island. We stopped at some wineries (I'm not a wine drinker so no details here - sorry!) and even a honey farm! But our main stop was Seal Bay (a literal bay where there are hundreds of seals) and the Remarkable Rocks. Yes, that's actually what they are called. And true to their name, they really were remarkable!

A Remarkable Rock

Relatively near by is the Admiral's Arch. This looked like something out of a movie. You had to walk down a long path and take some stairs down to see this beauty, but it was worth it! It's an incredible, naturally-occuring arch way - there were even some sea lions playing in the water down below!

Admiral's Arch

We really enjoyed our time on the island - the landscape was absolutely gorgeous! It was a little nerve-wracking driving on the wrong side of the road, but the boys got us around safely (I had NO interest in attempting to drive in Australia/New Zealand. Portugal was enough for me thankyouverymuch.) While this is not a "typical" stop for many Americans visiting Australia (We only saw the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel and back again in Sydney!), it was absolutely worth it for us.

If you'd like some help planning your next great adventure to a unique destination, check out my website at MilesIntoMemoriesTravel.com.