Another amazing day in amazing New Zealand! There is just so much to do here and we are surrounded by natural wonders and beauty. The weather has really come up trumps too. Brilliant sunshine today and just the right sort of hot to be enjoyable but not uncomfortable.

We sadly left Rotorua with a last glimpse of the steam over the lake, and headed towards Taupo on the Thermal Explorers Highway. This road winds through stunning scenery and dense pine forests for more or less the entire 70km journey. As we descended into the Waitamo Valley heading for Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Park, we moved from brilliant sunshine down into a level of mist and steam which was drifting along presumably rising from the lakes, vents and rivers. We stopped for coffee at a Honey farm and bought Lucy some Manuka honey made on the premises. This is a prime beekeeping area - they've all fled the UK and come to New Zealand and who can blame them.

When we arrived at Wai-O-Tapu, the mist was beginning to clear and we decided to make the short circular walk and then go to see the Lady Knox Geyser which erupts once a day at 10:15 sharp. As usual, the park was immaculately and sympathetically laid out with wooden and paved walkways guiding you through and past the geothermal features. The main highlights of the park are the many vents and cones and especially the thermal terraces and pools of incredibly bright colours caused by different minerals in the water. Even in the rather misty conditions the colours were extraordinary. We decided to return after the eruption and do the longer circular walk when the sun was likely to have burnt through.

The Lady Knox geyser is named after the daughter of the prison governor who governed the prison farm in the area back in the 1800s when prisoners were clearing the bush ready for tree planting. They came across the geyser which in those days was a pool of boiling water. They decided to wash their clothes in it and the geyser reacted to the soap in their clothes erupting forcefully and shooting their clothes metres in the air and giving them a huge fright. The geyser is still activated with a soaplike substance. Anyway, these days it has quite a cone built up from the minerals of the eruptions. It went off with quite a whoosh but not as big as the one yesterday.

We then went back and walked the larger circuit in the bright sunshine, taking more pictures. It really is a spectacular area, very unworldly.

Set off along our route for Huka Falls which is an amazing waterfall on the Huka river near Lake Taupo. The falls channel down a narrow gulley which the river is carving through a canyon. The original gulley was formed by volcanic action and the river comes from Lake Taupo running to Auckland. The force of water is extreme. Enough every second to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools. That's a lot of water! We viewed the Falls from several places around them, extra interested as we were booked to ride the Huka Falls Jet boat later in the afternoon.

We were booked onto the 2pm Huka Jet Boat and we were a bit early so we sat in the sun and waited. The boat itself is an amazing design that only needs about 4" of water once it is going along. It is powered by water passing through two pipes and using 2 V5 engines, so about 300HP. As it is totally flat bottomed with no propeller it just skims along and can turn on a sixpence. The ride takes you up the Huka river and they turn 360 fast turns and come skimming in to the walls and to obstacles just missing them by inches. We went right up to the base of the waterfall which was amazing. I had the lucky seat at the back which got all the splash from the turns so I got pretty wet. It was hot so it didn't matter. My little camera was in the u/w housing and somehow it got some steam inside it and misted up the lens a bit. In the end I just took the camera out and prayed but I had missed the closest pass to the waterfall by then…. Never mind….. A really enjoyable 30 minutes. Very exciting indeed.

Then on to our little cottage hotel in Lake Taupo, The Cottage Mews. We are right on the lakeside and the cottages are cute and well equipped. The lake is huge and very scenic of course with the three big volcanoes of Tongariro National Park looming in the distance. They are all active. One is permanently snow-capped but they are all ski resorts in the winter. One served as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Tomorrow we are going up there and I'm sure it will be spectacular.

We are enjoying New Zealand so much and we will definitely want to come back again. The voyage is brilliant and it lets us see so many places, some of them very remote that it would be difficult to reach any other way, but I do enjoy taking a road trip with Bob. We see so much more on our own.

Drove along the lakeshore to the main town of Taupo for dinner. It's quite a lively tourist scene with a great many restaurants, pretty tasteful place. We had planned on going for sushi but the restaurant was shut. We ended up having grills which were huge. The other thing we have noticed about NZ is that in some ways it is like the UK 30 years ago. For instance, all the shops shut at 5pm on the nose, even the tourist shops. There are no supermarkets open in the evening. I am going to guess that none of them will be open tomorrow (Sunday). Actually, I'd forgotten how horribly inconvenient this is. We wanted to buy breakfast things for the morning as we have a kitchenette. Should have done it before 5……

The sunset was gorgeous tonight, setting behind the volcanoes across the lake. A couple of yachts went out for a sunset cruise. We sat and watched the sun go down and then went back to our cottage. Another fabulous day.