Lake Taupo is in the very center of the North Island of New Zealand.  It is known worldwide for its fishing so we decided to book a half-day, guided fly-fishing trip.  Rachel had never been fly-fishing and I had only been once 7 years ago, so we were glad our guide, Dave, started us out  with casting 101 (see picture of both of us casting).  We slowly got the hang of it and I even managed (by blind luck) to catch one small rainbow trout (see pic of me reaching into the net;  the fish is too small to see in a picture).  Neither of us were concerned about catching fish though - it was a beautiful day and we had a great time just being out on the water working on our casting technique (see picture of Rachel casting). 

 

The next morning (Friday, June 16th) we took off for Rotorua, but stopped along the way at the Waiotapu Thermal area.  The area has a geyser similar to Old Faithful, but more impressively, has mud pools that percolate and steam eerily (see picture of steamy mud pit).  The entire area has geothermal activity including beautifully colored heated pools (see scenery shot of orange-colored edges of the Champagne Pool). 

 

Our next stop was in Rotorua at Te Paia, another geothermal area and Maori Cultural Center.  Unlike Aboriginals in Australia and Native Americans in the U.S., the Maori of New Zealand seem to have immersed themselves and become productive members of modern society.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand and share a settler mentality with the Europeans who came here not too much later.  Or maybe they interact better here because of the manner in which they are treated by Kiwis (there is a set aside number of seats in Parliament for Maoris).  You simply don't see Maoris in the dire straits that you witness with other similar cultures around the globe.  I'm not a huge fan of "cultural shows", but the dances and songs we watched here were really interesting and well done (see pictures of Maori "warrior" greeting our group and Maoris on stage performing).  The male "warriors" of the group performed a "Haka" or war dance that we would see again later - very entertaining. 

 

Our final stop in Rotorua was the Agrodome for a proper sheep shearing show.  You can't come to New Zeland and not see a sheep shearing (there are  40 million sheep here vs. 4 million people - crazy!).  The crowd consisted of me, Rachel, 2 Brits, 2 Canadians, 4 Kiwis (nickname for New Zealander - can't remember if I mentioned that before), and about 250 Asians (Korean and Japanese predominantly).  The Asian crowd was able to plug  in headphones and get a translation of the show, but the reactions were delayed and it was a tough crowd.  The host did a great job though and relied on the few English speakers in the crowd for most of his banter with the audience - I even volunteered to be guinea pig for some cow milking when most of the crowd seemed hesitant (see pic of me milking).  The shearing itself and information about sheep was fascinating (who knew there were 19 varieties of sheep - see pic of all 19 on stage and one up close). 

 

We drove that afternoon to Waitomo for our last sight in the central part of the North Island.  Waitomo is famous for its massive caves so we signed on to a 4-hr. trip (called the Lost World) exploring the Mangapu Cave system.  We started the trip with a 330 ft. rappel into a canyon (see the picture of the 2 of us hanging before the descent) and then hiked up into the pitch-black caves (see picture of both of us with our last sight of daylight).  The highlight of the caves came as we turned off our headlamps and watched the ceiling light up with glowworms. 

 

We left after our "Lost World" tour and headed for Auckland.  Jeff