Heading South

We departed the Kauri Park Holiday Park on the Sunday morning and headed south on the Southern Motorway to the beachside town of Raglan, only stopping briefly in Auckland. Raglan is one of New Zealand's premier surfing and kayaking spots and a very relaxed and laid back town.We were only staying here at the Raglan Holiday Park overnight and the next morning were off again, this time to the Juno Hall Backpackers at Waitomo. We went via the Ruakuri Scenic Drive, which was filled with constant undulating bends on the road but very picturesque, especially the immense Kawhia Harbour, which was on our right for most of the drive. On the way we passed the Te Uku Wind Farm, Aotearoa's first. The wind farm genetates 64.4 megawatts of power and is enough to service 30,000 average NZ homes.There are about a dozen units, each 80 metres high with an aerofoil span of 49 metres. The Waitomo Glowworm Caves were quite close so we took the opportunity to pay.them a visit. We admired the limestone stalactites and stalagmites and took a boat ride in the watery depths of the cave to see countless glowworms radiating in the luminous light, an experience we all enjoyed immensely.