Last summer at the European Juggling Convention’s opening show we were seated beside a lovely woman from New Zealand who invited us to stay with her when our travels took us to the North Island. Later, Greg posted a message on a New Zealand juggling Facebook group, and a very nice fellow made the same offer. Those two people were Irene and Damian – a couple who live off-grid in the bush between Hamilton and Raglan. So of course we had to visit!
Please bear with us a few moments while we say a bit about public transport between cities in New Zealand.
We are huge fans of long-distance public transport, when it’s done right. In our travels this year in North America, Europe, and Australia we were able to get almost everywhere by rail and ferry, with only occasional buses required. In New Zealand, not so much: passenger rail doesn’t really exist aside from some commuter rail near Wellington and Auckland, and the very expensive “Great Journeys” rail tours. All of which is useless for much of the country.
So, that leaves bus. And it turns out there’s only really one intercity bus company in New Zealand, named (appropriately enough) Intercity. So of course, that’s what we’re using.
The good news is that Intercity does have an inexpensive option for heavy travellers: the Flexipass. This lets you purchase a fixed number of travel hours, valid for three months, at a relatively low price. Currently this is about NZ$8 per hour, or CDN$6.50, if you buy 80 hours like we did. Then, when you book a (say) eight and a half hour trip, eight and a half hours are taken off your balance.
The bad news is that you’re on a bus (duh) so the seats are narrower and less comfortable than the trains. Also, you only have access to toilets at the planned stops, since most buses don’t have them on board. The even worse news is that most routes run once a day, and some routes run only three or four times a week – which makes travel planning a little bit annoying.
Why bring this up now? Well, we were on our way to Irene and Damian’s, but we also wanted to visit the Waitomo Glowworm Caves, which are about 75 kilometres further south. Because of schedules, getting from Hamilton to the caves by bus would have cost us three full days – one to get there, one to visit the caves, and one to get back. That seemed a little excessive for what was clearly an afternoon trip.
And that, friends, is why we rented a car in Hamilton: the first car rental of the entire voyage. Fortunately, Greg was comfortable driving on the left side of the road, and it was an uncomplicated route other than getting in and out of the city.
So, we took a morning bus from Auckland to Hamilton, rented a car, and drove an hour south to Waitomo.
There are a bunch of different ways to visit the glowworm caves. Based on a recommendation we’d had from a few people, including a random couple we met on the XXXX Brewery tour in Brisbane, we decided the most fun would be the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company’s Black Labyrinth tour. As they describe it “New Zealand’s maximum-adrenaline Black Water Rafting tour. Float down an underground river, slip into fast waters, jump off waterfalls and take in the magic of the glow worm studded Ruakuri Cave.”
After grabbing a bit of lunch at the rafting company’s cafe and checking in at the desk, the next step was getting fully kitted out in protective gear. For reasons that will shortly become obvious we didn’t take our own cameras into the caves. This picture, and all the rest from our rafting trip, were taken by the rafting company staff. (LBWR)
We were bused a short way to the cave entrance. Before we headed inside, we had a brief training session where we practiced jumping backwards from a small height into the creek with our inner tubes. (LBWR)
This was in preparation for jumping off waterfalls in the cave, and resulted in some wonderful facial expressions. (LBWR)
Here we’re getting our safety briefing before entering the cave. Our two guides were obviously very experienced, and had great senses of humour. (LBWR)
The first part of the cave was dry and we went on a fun crawl through some narrow tunnels. Not recommended for the claustrophobic. The cave was full of very cool looking stalactites, which we were asked not to touch. (LBWR)
Then it was into the water and under a very low ceilinged section to the main open part of the cave complex. (LBWR)
Thank goodness for the helmet lights! (LBWR)
From there we were into a faster-moving section of the stream, with rougher water. (LBWR)
And then we got to the first of the promised waterfalls and another safety briefing before we each got to jump off into the darkness. There were a couple more waterfalls to jump plus some more fun rapids along the way. (LBWR)
After that we hit calm water again, and a large open cave where we got to see the promised glowworms. This is actually a shot from the rafting company’s marketing brochure – photographing glowworms is not something that can be easily done on the fly – but it’s pretty representative of what we saw other than the hanging threads, which were hard to spot. Glowworms aren’t actually worms, but rather the larvae of the New Zealand fungus gnat. They glow to attract recently hatched insects, like mosquitos, which become trapped in sticky threads the glowworms dangle below themselves. When they’ve eaten enough insects they transform into the adult gnat, live for a few days, reproduce if they’re lucky, and the cycle starts again. Possibly a bit icky to think about, but really quite magical to see on the ceiling of a pitch-black cave. (LBWR)
There were a couple more rest breaks with photo opportunities along the way. Then it was out of the water, drop off the inner tubes, back on the bus, and into a hot shower before driving back to Hamilton. (LBWR)
Irene met us at the rental car lot in Hamilton and drove us to her place. She and Damian live in a solar-powered off-grid home, fairly deep in the bush, between Hamilton and Raglan, but closer to Raglan. Their place is also the headquarters for Circus Aotearoa, which Damian and Irene founded in 2006 when the circus they had been performing with, Whirling Brothers, went out of business.
During our visit Damian was actually in Christchurch with their son Matthias, renting out their circus big top to a music festival. We were to meet him, Matthias and their daughter Artemis, a little later in our travels.
The next day we had some time to get acquainted with their property. This is part of the driveway, and shows what most of the land they’re on looks like. The tall things near Karen that look like palms are actually fern trees, a very ancient species.
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Damian and Irene raise pigs, which are kept in three different pens since they don’t all get along. The pigs in the main pen have developed an escape route, and spend parts of their day wandering the yard. The goat at lower left is Puppy, who is something of a pet.
Artemis found Puppy beside their drive, nearly dead, when Puppy was just a tiny kid. There are feral goats living in the bush near their place, and Puppy was likely one of their offspring that got lost or abandoned. Irene didn’t expect her to live, but they managed to nurse her back to health. Goats are social animals, and Puppy has been raised without any other goats in her life, so she’s a little bit crazy and seems to think she’s part human. One of her favourite things to do is head-butt the posts around the house, and occasionally the people.
In the afternoon Irene had some errands to run in Raglan, so we went in with her and had a wander. Raglan is a small town, formerly populated mainly by surfers and hippies, but now gentrifying.
This “Mustache Party” set was on the bulletin board in the kitchen. To no one’s surprise, Greg is a scoundrel.
Their home is full of circus memorabilia. These are posters from many of the years Circus Aotearoa was touring, signed by the performers. Unfortunately, like so many entertainment businesses, they were pretty-much wiped out by the pandemic. When things started to open up, they did the math and realized that there was no way to make a profit from touring anymore. As Irene put it “the people who can afford tickets don’t want to see a traditional circus, and the people who want a circus can’t afford the tickets.” So, New Zealand’s last traditional touring circus is no more, unless something of a miracle happens.
That evening Greg made pizza for the three of us. It turned out well, and the leftovers disappeared the next day at lunch.
The next morning, Irene took us to see a few of her favourite places in the area. This is the Wairēinga Scenic Reserve, which is quite aptly named. The west coast of New Zealand has quite a bit of rain forest.
Of course Karen had to stop and take photos of the plants.
The highlight of the reserve is Bridal Veil Falls, a 55 metre waterfall. This is the view down from the top.
And here’s the three of us on the lookout. Thanks to a random stranger for taking the photo.
Here’s the waterfall itself.
And here’s what it looks like from the bottom, with three happy people in the way.
From there we drove to the coast. Along the way we saw many hills looking like this, which we were to find all over the country. The terraced effect comes from sheep grazing the hills. They tend to walk the hills on the horizontal, which pushes soil down and forms ridges, which create paths, which encourages the sheep to walk the same route again.
This is the approach to one part of Ruapuke Beach. The area is home to the New Zealand Dotterel, which is a bird species in serious decline.
And here’s the beach itself. It goes on for kilometres, all black volcanic sand. It’s more of a surfing beach than a swimming beach.
That afternoon Irene was teaching some circus classes at her home, so we went for a walk on the property and had some down time. Then we took Irene out for dinner at the ISO Bistro in town (recommended!) before heading for the Wednesday evening circus meetup.
For a small town, Raglan has a surprisingly active circus community. Greg, Irene, and Jay did some passing, working on triangle variations and the four-count roundabout. Jay and his wife Jess perform on cruise ships and at festivals, and run the Freedom2Fly aerial, acrobatic, circus and dance school. It was fun to meet them.
Karen did some poi swinging, and taught a couple of interested people the basics of veil poi.
Driving back to Irene’s, we stopped at a creek that runs through their property and walked down through the darkness to a spot where we could see glowworms on the banks. It was absolutely magical and we just sat there in silence for quite a while. This is the best image Greg managed to get on his phone – we told you it’s hard to get good photos of the glowworms!
Then it was back to Irene’s for some well-deserved sleep.
