We drove out of Whitianga, heading south and passing through lots of "tree-industries", where they plant trees just to cut them down years later to produce timber, paper etc. Not very exiting landscaping, and we arrived by midday in Waitomo, where the famous caves are. We got dropped off outside Waitomo Caves entrance and joined a guided walk into the underground. We passed spectacular stalagmites and stalactites on our way through the cave, before we arrived at the underground lakes. Here we boarded a boat, sailing us slowly through the cave and out on the other side. It was a strange experience - it was dark, but thousands of small lights lit up the ceiling - Glow-worms, which is small living worms glowing like stars, just like the name says. It looked like a whole universe with an underground galaxy, reflecting the light in the water as well. Quite an experience. We drove afterwards to Rotorua, where we just managed to check into the hostel before we got picked up by the bus taking us to the Maori village, Mahaki, for our cultural evening with a Maori Concert and Hangi. It was a funny and sometimes quite weird experience. These people live out in the forest and hunt and fight like in old times, and stick to their old believes. They were the first people here in NZ, and they have a lot of history and culture knowledge. They "acted" some of the stories out, sang and danced and told stories of their lives, their believes, everything even their body-tatoos or killing-methods. It was highly interesting, quite entertaining and very "foreign" for most of the audience. They are friendly people, but rather scary as well;) The highlight came in the end - the Hangi. Hangi is their traditional way of cooking food, in a fire on hot volcano-rocks, and it makes the food very tasty. There were a huge dining-room with tables of food and it was all very delicious. I had a taste of nearly all of it, it was really good and we had so much fun, singing and joking. It was fun! On the way back in the bus all the countries represented had to sing their national hymn for the rest, and it was so embarrassing, I was of course the only one from Denmark, and I messed "Det er et yndigt land" completely up by only remembering bits and pieces from my not-often viewed soccer-matches. But who cares;)

My day in Rotorua was spend on very relaxing terms, first sleeping-in to about midday (yes, normally I am up way before 7am, cause the bus usually leaves at 7, so it was just wonderful to not set an alarm and catch up a bit on my sleeping), then strolling along some hot water pools, which is water-holes warmed up from the volcanic underground heat, so it gets even to boiling temperatures and steam is coming up all over the place. It is situated in a huge park-like area right opposite the hostel I stay in with an English girl, Clair. We walked along the Rotorua Lake as well, but it is very smelly in the air around the city from the Sulphur, so it was quite unbearable and not enjoyable;) We went to the supermarket and bought some food, cooked nicely and have spend the rest of the day beside the swimming pool at the hostel, reading, talking, chilling out.

From Rotorua we drove in direction of Taupo, stopping quite often at some very scenic, but really badly smelly, geothermal parks, with volcanic lakes and mudholes. We stopped as well beside a huge geyser, Lady Knox, seeing the eruption being provoked by soap thrown into the crater, but it was quite impressive anyway. The morning was spent on a 2 hour walk in a geothermal park, Wai-o-tapo. Here one could hardly breathe from the sulphur-smell, but there were quite some amazing volcanic lakes and steamy holes. Especially one lake was huge and very beautiful, with an orange edge around (see pictures).

Upon midday we drove on to Huka Falls, very impressive river and waterfall. Again, see photos. It is hard to describe all the scenery, one needs to see it to understand;) We also went to a place in Taupo where some people from the group did bungy-jumping above the Huka River. Then we checked in to the hostel and I went along the Lake Taupo with Clair before we went shopping for a very nice meal. Some of the guys from the group came back later and offered us 5$ for a portion of our meal (we had paid 5$ for all the ingredients, so we considered making a small business out of it;).

Anyway, next day, Thursday, poor little me was ill. I have made an appointment with Margeret for Saturday, so I tried desperately to get well. Stayed in bed most day and got pretty bored. Where was my loving mum to make tea for me?? No-one there who cared a s***, so I pulled myself together and went to the shop to get myself some teabags, lemons and "sore-throat" sweets. It seemed to help, and next day Margeret picked me up in front of my hostel, and we drove down to Tongoriro National Park. We had decided to climb a mountain - and so we did. Luckily the weather was alright, despite windy, and we began our journey. It was awesome, the views, the track, the snow, Margeret. We followed the track for Tongoriro Crossing, but soon decided that we wanted to climb Mt Tongoriro. Since there is no track up that way, we made our own, and suddenly everything got quite challenging. Snowy flakes we had to climb up by trying to kick our shoes into the hard surface, huge rocks we had to get ourselves onto, not to mention the wind trying to blow us off the edge all the time (running with 50k/h). We even had to squeeze through a tiny hole between two rocks to continue our path. We made some breaks along the way, had lunch, enjoyed the views before we got so high up that we couldn't see anything but the clouds surrounding us. It was cool!!! Back in the car I could hardly say a word any longer - my throat had got worse. We stopped at the supermarket to get me some medicin, before she dropped me off and left me to go tired, ill but very happy in bed. The day had been very good and it had been absolutely great to see Margeret again!!

Well, Sunday my trip continued to Wellington, the capital city of NZ right at the bottom of the North Island. I woke up and couldn't say a word any longer. But somehow I figured out to communicate with the bus driver where I would like to stay, how many nights etc, all the things that need organizing. The day was rather boring, just driving, but probably for the best in anyway. Wellington was as well nothing special- just another big city.

So Monday I left the hostel early, heading for the ferry-terminal to go to the South Island. The journey was beautiful on the ferry, despite overcast weather, but my voice got better, so I managed to get ticket, luggage and everything sorted out. From Picton, the arrival point with the ferry, I am heading to Nelson, The sunshine capital of NZ. (Yes, it is proved that they have more sun than anywhere else in NZ). I am just taking some peaceful days to begin with and hopefully get completely well again.

The ferry ride ended in a huge rainy cloud that seems to cover the whole south Island. the weather here is horrible, hopefully it get better soon!!!