When mentioning our travel plans to locals in Auckland, we quickly learned that we had no idea how to pronounce the city we would be spending a week in. Rotorua, pronounced "roh-toh-roo-uh", is set among a collection of calderas-turned-lakes and restless geothermal activity, and is a major adventure-sports hub.
Waitomo Caves: The Fault & Near Stars
Lights out. Our senses raced to process while our eyes recover. We inhaled the dampness of the air as its coolness tightened our skin, while the roar of a distant waterfall grew closer. One-by-one, then cluster-by-cluster, the watery corridor was illuminated by tiny blue lights. We'd entered a literal wormhole to a galaxy inside the earth.