NZ +15: New Plymouth to Waitomo Caves

It's worth mentioning the journey from New Plymouth to Waitamo, because it was just amazing. I was driving and there was bucketloads of scenery.

Two things to mention in particular...

The climb up Mount Messenger, which is probably the most dangerous main road I have ever driven on...

Hairpin bends for about 10km, up and down the side of a mountain and through a short tunnel of solid rock at the summit.

And also the Awakino Gorge...



(not my photo, too dangerous to stop!)

...which is the kind of place which, if you tried to drive a main road through it in the UK, you would have Swampy and the bloody Dongas chanting, unwashed, in tents or up trees for ten years.

And yet here is State Highway 3, carving its way through.