Megan and Rachel

We had the opportunity to entertain Rachel's friend, Megan, last week. It was a fun week. We showed her some of the sights here in Whangarie that we had already seen but we also took her to a local cave that we had not been in. We read that it self guided. We were also told that you could see glow worms. It was really fun. The cave was very open and fairly easy to navigate. The only problem was we had only one flashlight so we had to work as a team to keep the light in the right place for all of us to see. There were glow worms galore. They look like white Christmas lights. We did, however, have to walk through water and it took days to get our shoes dry.

Steve had a few days off so we went to the Corumandel Peninsula. We attempted to experience the hot water beach. When the tide is out you can dig a hole in the sand and hot water will seep in. The waves were too high that day and no hot water was found. The next day we went to Cathedral Cove Beach. It was just beautiful. A few of the Narnia scenes have been filmed there. It was peaceful and beautiful. Probably the most beautiful beach here.

We then decide to go to an exotic bird sanctuary. We drove down a gravel road to a farm. The sign said that it was open but no one was there. There was another sign that said we are sometimes gone but feel free to look at our birds and if you enjoy please leave a donation. We did look and enjoy it but we never saw the owners. Only in New Zealand would you see this.

We then traveled down to see a butterfly garden. It , however, did have owners present. We were able to see lots of beautiful butterflies. We had a fun time and really enjoyed being able to share our New Zealand experience with Megan. We love having visitors. Hint, Hint.