we checked out of the hostel and went down the road to the waitomo glowworms cave to see er, uh, well glowworms of course! the last time we were in waitomo, we didn't see this cave and we did the wet glowworm experience where you put on a wet suit. that wasn't as fun as it sounds. this time we kept our clothes on and went for a dry boat ride. we were on the second tour of the day at 9:30am and there was only 1 other person in our tour group so each of us got our own row of seats, laid down, and enjoyed the tranquil boat ride illuminated by glowworms. even without drugs it was quite trippy.

end of the glowworm cave boat ride

emerge out of the cave to get this awesome view

we then continued on with our road trip and headed towards new plymouth. on the way in piopio, we saw a sign pointing towards a waterfall that was 23km away. what the hell, let's find it! we passed by a lot of sheep on windy roads to get to the falls but it was definitely worth it. it was a pretty good find.

waitanguru falls

the sheep of piopio love to pose

apparently the aged in town don't know how to cross the street

we made another side trip detour in tongaporutu to see the three sisters. i wasn't really sure what it was but it sounded interesting. you can only walk out to see them during low tide and we didn't arrive at the right time. we walked about 5 minutes along the rocks and had to retreat. if we went maybe another 10 minutes, we would have seen the rocks that are the three sisters. we enjoyed some time on the black sand beach. we collected some of the sand in a bottle as a keepsake.

tongaporutu

mt. taranaki in the distance

wind wand of new plymouth

as we got closer to our destination, mt. taranaki came into view and it was quite exciting. i wasn't sure how close to the mountain we would get or if we should try to drive up close tomorrow. we stopped by the ocean to admire the view of the west coast and this famous mountain that doubled as mt. fuji in "the last samurai".

we got into new plymouth around 3pm, checked into shoestring backpackers (not so good--mildew smell in rooms, cold rooms, only 1 toilet, small kitchen), went to the museum portion of puke ariki which is free and is probably in the top three of museums i have been to here (puke ariki also has a visitor center and library), looked around the waterfront, went grocery shopping, and made an early night of it.