It has been a month since we wrote a blog and we have literally not stopped moving about for the whole time. We hopped back on the Stray bus and headed towards Raglan for a night. The is New Zealand premier surf spot, with one of the world's best left-handed surf breaks. We spent the afternoon playing on the flying fox and rope course which were at the accommodation and sitting on the sun terrace overlooking the beautiful bay.

We left the next day for Maketu, via Waitomo caves. The caves are huge and filled with stalagmites, stalagtites, glow worms and an underwater river system. We decided to go 'tubing', which entailed taking a rubber ring deep down into the caves and swimming, floating and jumping your way to the other end. When we were floating down the river we turned off our headtorches to see the millions of glowworms on the cave walls. There were 3 waterfalls which we had to jump off to get to the lower pools, which was pretty scary seeing as it's very dark - not to mention the freezing cold water and the eels which live in there too! The guides warned us about hidden potholes under the water that you could become submerged in. About 10 minutes later, whilst people were queuing to jump off a waterfall, one man in our group - who had clearly not listened to the warning! - walked straight into a hole which was bigger than him. The guides had to drag him out by his chin as the water pressure can pin you down. Thankfully he was absolutely fine and we found it absolutely hilarious!

We left Waitomo and headed towards the East coast for our Maori experience. We had a traditional hangi meal, slept in the tradition marae and watched a performance of the Haka and poi dance. We met the family and greeted them all by touching noses, shaking hands and saying 'Kia Ora'. We were then told that we had to perform the dances to the rest of the group! Phil went off with all the boys from our tour bus to learn the Haka whilst me and the girls were taught how to use a poi (ball on a string!) and the accompanying dance/song.Needless to say this was rather entertaining. All the boys got particularly enthusiastic and were all red and sore by the end of it from slapping themselves!

The next day we went to Rotorua for a lunch stop. This is a town built on a geothermal area. The entire place stinks of egg (sulphur) and there are parks built around the bubbling mud with hot bathing pools and geysers. Whilst here we bumped into Steph, a friend of ours from home who we knew was in the area but had not planned to meet!

Later that day we arrived in to Lake Taupo, New Zealand's biggest lake and the world's largest crater lake, where Phil had decided to jump out of a plane at 12,000ft. We had to wait for quite a while as it was too windy and we weren't sure that he would be able to do it that day but the weather improved hugely and he ended up jumping with the most beautiful conditions. From that height, he was able to see both the East and West coast of the North Island.

We headed South to the Tongaririo National Park, which is famous for the 8 hour alpine walk. Unfortunately for us, there were dangerous winds and lots of snow and so the route was closed whilst we were there. We ended up hiding indoors in an alpine lodge next to roaring fires with our books! On the morning we left the national park, the weather was gorgeous and the view of the mountains was superb. The scenery has gradually improved as we've made our way south.

On our last day in the North Island, we arrived in Wellington, the capital city. We went to Te Papa, the national museum, which was huge and really impressive. We saw a blue whale carcass which was 26 metres (it was only a baby!). The 4 metre colossal squid was visible but was being moved so we didn't get a good look!

We went for some drinks with the people on our bus as the group was dividing due to some people staying on in Wellington whereas we were heading to the South Island the next morning….