What a spectacular day! We started off by driving the short distance to the Te Puia thermal area of Rotorua. This is a large area of Maori homeland sitting around dense forests and containing numerous pools of volcanic mud, thermal streams, geysers including Pohutu, the largest geyser in New Zealand. It is also home to the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute where young Maoris are trained in carving and weaving using the traditional methods. We walked miles a...

Then, on through increasingly volcanic and forested countryside to Rotorua where we are spending two nights. It started to rain as we arrived. Our hotel is pretty modern and on the lakeside and we could see sulphuric steam rising from the area around and, by George, we could smell it too. The whole town reeks of sulphur but you get used to it within a couple of minutes. We unpacked and then drove to the Rotorua Tourist Office where we were being picked up...

Our first stop was just outside Matamata about 120 miles from Auckland at the Hobbiton Movie Set. We'd prebooked a 12 noon tour and made it with about 30 minutes to spare. The movie set is on a very large sheep farm (yes our first glimpse of sheep was here!!!) which fulfilled Peter Jackson's requirements for rolling hills, a large lake and a big tree. When they used it for the Lord of the Rings films, the farmer had never heard of the books and the rugby was...

Very excited when we woke up and found ourselves docked at the main pier in Auckland. It's right in the centre of town, literally across the road from the city centre. We had packed last night so after breakfast we began the process of getting off the ship. Some slight confusions as to what forms we had to fill in, but eventually we were checked in as arriving in New Zealand and we went to look for our hire car. That was supposed to be there for 8am but fin...

Woke up to a beautiful day. Blue sky, nice warm sunshine. About 25C so not too hot either. We were just entering the Bay of Islands at around 7am. What a gorgeous place! A massive deep bay and natural harbour studded with islands of all sizes and everything so very green. The sea was very calm which was a wonderful change too after the last few days. We had breakfast and then went down to Reception to pick up the dive bag. It was here that we got so...