All the way up the North Island (and down)

That's basically what we did.

Travelled by road all the way from the southernmost tip of hte North Island (Wellington) upto the northernmost (well, almost, as Auckland is right there on top).

Beginning Thursday (March3), we covered one tourist spot daily and by Monday, had the whole thing pretty well sassed up.

Thursday, travelled all the way to Taupo (five-and-a-half hour drive). Saw all the main volcanoes (Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu) and the not so big ones too. Then, that evening, drove off to Craters of the Moon, Huka Falls and then had a lovely walk by the lake.

Craters of the Moon was awesome. It is a valley surrounded by lush greenery, in which smoke steams out of vents and holes in the ground, from the thermally active Wairekei area. Incredible.

Huka Falls, yawn, anyways, been there, seen that. Lake walk, pleasant, but not too much so , as we were really hungry by then (in spite of that fact that we had been junking on fast food practically all the time, as you do when you are on holiday).

Next morn, off to Rotorua, home to a thousand gushing geysers, boiling mudpools, sulphurous smells and the Maori. Went into the Whakarewarewa thermal park, which also had a bit about Maori art and culture. Plus, I hadn't been there the last time I was in Rotorua. But this time around, the smell of sulphur wasn't so strong. Nor were there too many sudden small eruptions under our feet.

Did the animal park of Rainbow Springs and then ended up at the Polynesian Spa. Spent more than an hour in the mineral spa. Sheer bliss!

The next morn, went off to the bus station to get the bus to Auckland, travelling via Waitomo. Had one of our bags stolen. Thieves lurk in the most unlikeliest of places, apparently. Periamma said she had had two of her bags stolen when in Switzerland.

After 3 hours, were in the glowworm caves at Waitomo, magical really. We first went in to the stalagtite and stalagmite caves, before going by boat into the actual glow worm caves. Although the lesson in biology sounded yucky, the actual sighting of the glowworms was nothing short of magical.

Then, a nice lunch at a wayside restaurant and then off to Akl, while watching the movie `Armageddon'. Reached the Akl Sky Tower (tallest tower in the southern hemisphere and one of the tallest in the world). You can bungee jump from the top, but I wasn't tempted.

Then, stayed the night at my cousin's place, put P'ma and P'pa on the plane to India on Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, one of the highlights was an unlimited south Indian meal of pongal, idli, dosai, vadai, chutney, sambar etc at Saffron. As we don't have any hotels serving S.Indian food in Wgn, this was a real treat for us. That too at $10 ea.

Then, went ferrying to Rangitoto island, a hour-an-hour ride from Akl harbour. Rangitoto is the youngest of Akl's 50 volcanoes (most Akl suburbs are sitting on volcanoes called Mt Eden, Mt Roskill, One Tree Hill, etc). And we actually climbed right to the top of this mountain. One-and-half hours of sheer and demanding physical labour. Even the kids (Nandita and Sourish) did 75 percent. Fantastic. And the view from the top was to die for. The way my heart was pounding after that climb, I thought it would actually come to that!!!

Left Akl after Monday lunch and was back home by Monday eve. Real hectic and brilliant trip. Enjoyed by all of us.