We woke up roasty toasty in our tent again today, thanks to our thermal floor heating!! its like having an electric blanket on constant, a-mazing! After breakfast we took a stroll down to the hot water beach behind our campsite, which looked out on the Lake Rotorua. The view over the lake was really scenic, with black swans gliding over the surface. The beach itself was a bit of a disappointment however. You're supposed to dig a hole for yourself and sit in it, t...

After a nice warm sleep last night with our under-soil heating, we were up and out and about in Rotorua. Many of the places here seem to offer the same thing, with guided tours of either Maori settlements or thermal parks. We found the one place that combined the two: Whakarewarewa Thermal Village. The local Maori had set up their village right next to a geyser and some thermal springs. This is the one thing that confuses me about Rotorua as a whole: why set up a...

This morning we got up early, dismantled our tent and caught the bus back down to Auckland and then onto Rotorua, nearer the centre of the North Island. It was quite a long journey, about 8 hours, with a crazy bus driver on the second coach who seemed to find it near impossible to drive in a straight line even on the motorway!We were quite glad when we reach Rotorua, but then had a pretty long walk out to our campsite…well, it felt a long way with our rucks...