Day 4: When it rains, it pours!

Day 4 of our trip, and we are still in Paihia. Good place to be. We started our day with an excellent breakfast at Blue Marlin B&B after which we went our merry way.

As the forecast told us the afternoon would bring us showers and a chance of a thunderstorm we decided to alter the plans to not include a long walk in a Kauri forest but instead we chose to do some more local activities which would also take less time.
As the rains would commence around three in the afternoon, we’d be ready before that.

So, stop 1: Kawiti Glow Worm Caves. A mere 20km’s away and much more a local attraction the caves offer a lovely scenery, a short cave, eels, stalactites, stalagmites and loads of glow worms. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photographs inside the cave, do I cheated the signs and took a picture of the entrance of the cave. 🙂

With the clouds already moving in on us, we decided to drive to Haruru Falls, which are right next to Paihia. We were to walk in the mangrove forest on a wooden boardwalk, but never reached it as the clouds were darker than ever.
Maybe tomorrow?
With some time to spare and empty stomachs to fill the next destination was Kerikeri, home to the oldest stone building in New Zealand. At almost 150 years old it is a huge attraction to the locals. For us, not do much.

We found some more falls over there, aptly named Rainbow Falls. As the falls are directly adjacent to the road, this was a very short visit which meant we could quickly turn our attention to much more important things: food.

During the lunch the heavens opened. A monsoon like showering rain reminded us why the land is so luscious and green. It lasted for almost half an hour and really illustrated the saying in the title of this blog neatly: when it rains over here, it pours.