Hey everyone!!

We arrived in Rotorua at the YHA and headed straight for the geothermal park. As soon as we got off the bus you could smell the sulphur in the air which smelt like rotten eggs! I told Lou and Hayley if ever they need to trump now was the time, they would get away with it, blame it on the sulphur haha This Park was amazing; bubbling mud pools, boiling hot springs and spurting water fountains that erupt all day and its weird to think that all this activity is going on below us and New Zealand's indigenous people; the Maori people used to use this steam from the ground to cook!

The guide we had to show us around the park reminded us of my nana Elsie, haha she was about 70 and her mannerisms were dead on, we had a big group of all nationalities and she couldn't remember the names so she referred to everyoneby their nationality. At one point she shouted 'INDIA where do you think you're going? and "where's FRENCHY gone?" everybody was trying to slope off from the tour but she would catch them every time. The best bit was when she said.................. " i never had a sandwich" haha just kidding (private joke)

That night Louise and Hayley signed up for an evening to learn about Maouri culture and they had a banquet feast which was cooked traditionally in a steaming hole in the ground.I didn't attend because i thought it was a lot of money and it wasn't really my sort of thing but they came back and they said they loved it. They even brought me back a chicken leg which i was grateful for. It was weird not being with Louise that night; I found i was talking to myself walking down the street to the supermarket. I just skyped that night and caught up on the blogs.

The next morning was when we heard the bad news about the lovable tyke. It was horrible and as expected Louise was devastated, we all were. He was a true legend and the best dog in the world. FULL STOP!!

We decided to spend a few days in Roturua, this gave Louise some time to reflect and relax because it's something that just takes time. That day we chilled out all day that night we were lucky to have a whole unit to ourselves. What happened was Hayley needed to use the tumble dryer but they were all busy in the main building so she gave us a key card to get into the out building. We found out that this out building wasn't getting used at all and the kitchen, T.V lounge was empty so me and Hayley sneaked overwith all our food and cooked a special tea for Lou hoping it would lift her spirits; a good old pasta bake! It was better since she didn't have to be around anyone and it was just us so we watched a film and scoffed our faces and we even had a special treat in case the pasta bake failed........... a Giant chocolate muffin!!

The next day was again a chill out day in the morning and we watched Dodgeball, Lou was feeling a little better and we all decided to go luging to take our mind off things and it was brilliant. Luging involved us getting a cable car to the top of a mountain where we had views over Rotarua lake and town and then we jumped in a little car/buggy and raced down a specially designed track down the mountain. We had three goes and Lou crashed every time! Haha

The 1st time she took a corner too fast had smashed off the wooden boards that keep you from flying off the side of the cliff. At the bottom of the run they have a conveyor belt that you put your car on and it gets carried back up the mountain. Well............ Louise and Hayley thought they were ahead of the game and instead of being a fool and dragging their car onto the conveyor belt they would just drive straight onto it........seems idiot proof on paper however, the image of Hayley and Lou trying to scramble off this conveyor belt on their hands and knees will be burnt into my brain. They drove straight on and within seconds the conveyor had them away and there was a bar to stop this from happening so Lou's head nearly got took off and then both of them had do the crawl of shame back under the bar and off the conveyor belt but the belt was moving the same speed as them so they were just crawling for ages not going anywhere and the best part was i caught it all on video haha

The 3rd time Lou just loses control of the car and managed to go off road screaming as she does, me and Hayley were in stitches as she's getting ragged about on the grass like a doll haha. We loved luging; it was great value for money. That night we tried to do the same thing as before and i pretended i needed to do laundry so i could get the key to gain access to the empty building and we had another chilled out night just watching TV. However this time the manager caught us because she saw the lights on. She came up and said "excuse me but what are you's doing in here nobody is meant to be in here at all?" but me and Hayley had already come up with a speech for this exact scenario; it worked a treat!! She totally bought it!

Next destination wataimo,

Love Adam, Louise and Hayley xxx