8th February - Auckland

Well I finally arrived in Auckland to some lovely sunshine, it was rather refreshing after all the humidity I had been enduring in Borneo. Auckland is much smaller than I expected; I had the morning exploring before the arrival of Miss Birch. Once she arrived we did some further exploring and walked down to the pier however with Charlie's arrival she had brought the rain and it started to pour down! We headed back to the hostel and cooked some dinner - yey to western food!! Charlie brought me some UK drugs to fix my tummy as well so things on the up.

10the Feb - On the road to Rotorua!

After a night in the big busy YHA hostel we headed out early on the magic bus. This bus is a hop on hop off system along a pre defined route that I have bought. We drove down to Waitomo with a couple of stop off along the way and we went Black Water rafting in the glow worm caves. It was great to see the Glow worms thet were amazing but you could hardly call it rafting; they drageed us around by our feet whilst we sat in inner tubes. It seemed to be over very quickly and the wet suits were horrible it took me ages to get it on! Was really pleased I got to see the glow worms though - they shone almost a blue colour.

Afterwards we were picked up by the magic bus and headed on to Rotorua. The area of this town house a lot of thermal activity and there were some amzing sites to see. I was shocked that there was even bubbling boiling water in peoples gardens! There is also a large maori influence here so we got to see a real village.

That night we headed to a Maori Village for a Hangi and a concert. It was a great evening and I more than ate my monies worth of lamb. They performed a chapter of their story (which you can watch other chapters around NZ). Considering they must do it every evening they were brillaint and the food was great. We did splash out and get a bottle of wine but we did have to toast Charlie's arrival!

We explored Rotorua in the morning and went to their public park which has all the geothermal area's roped off or else you would het properly burnt! We went white water rafting in the afternoon which was brilliant; much better value for money than the blackwater. The people that ran it were really funny and made the day a bit more interesting. We went over the highest rafted waterfall in the world and managed to stay in the boat - only to get to the other side of it to be chucked out by the guide! Charlie blamed my lip but I think it was more to do with us being the only English in the boat!

After a quiet night we headed out early in the morning on the magic bus which took us to see the Lady Knox Geyser which shoots water about 20m in the air every morning. Then into the Wai-o-tapu Thermal wonderland to see all the amazing activity there. You could see mud pools and different coloured lakes. Mud and water was bubbling away everywhere.

We then headed on to Taupo.