Next stop on our route was to be Rotorua, the place of the natural hot springs. The journey there was horrible as was lots of twists and turns on the bus, not good for travel sickness! We stopped at a bush walk, only a short 30minute round trip up to an old tramway built into the mountain, going through tunnels etc, was quite cool to see and walk through actually.

When we arrived in Rotorua we had a quick tour on the bus and then went to the hostel to check in. We literally just had time to dump our stuff in the rooms before we were collected again and taken to the luging site. After getting the gondola up the mountain, (which by the way really made me want to ski again!) we went and collected our helmets and made our first luge run down the scenic route which was 3km long! It was quite scary at first but i soon got the hang of it and we did three runs in total. It was so much fun, more so with all of there doing it together.

When we got back to the hostel, again we did not have long to get ready before we were to be collected again. This time, it was by the company who were running our evening out to a traditional Maori village experience. It turned out to be an absolutely amazing evening. When we first arrived, we were all taken into the courtyard where the Maori warriors came out very intimidating and seeming to be quite violent but actually it was the Maori way of trying to find out if we had come in peace or not. Once a selected chief from our tribe had accepted a peace offering it was known that we had come in peace and so we were granted access into the village itself. Entering the village was so surreal, it was literally right in the bush and consisted of a number of little wooden huts. We were allowed to just wander around the village for about 15minutes, being shown how they make things and games that they play etc. After the 10minutes or so was up, a horn sounded and we were all ushered towards the main hall, where once seated a show was put on for us of Maori singing, dancing, storytelling and ending with a performance of the famous Haka. As soon as the show was over, everyone made their way into the dining hall where we all had a really nice buffet dinner. All of the food was prepared in the traditional Maori way which was to cook it in a pit underground using extremely hot rocks, we were given an explanation and demonstration outside afterwards and it was amazing how they did it. A couple more songs and a wander around the village shop and it was back to the bus for the karaoke journey home!lol! All in all a really brilliant night which was well worth doing, awesome.

The following morning and we were all on the bus by about 8.30am. After dropping a couple of people off to watch a comedy sheep show, we headed to the zorb centre. On arrival it became apparent that i was the only one on the bus who wanted to go zorbing. After a little persuasion to still go ahead and not to worry that the whole bus would be waiting for me, i paid up, got changed and off i went up the hill. Essentially, i rolled down a zigzag track down a hill, in a big rubber ball that had water in it (warm water luckily!). it was awesome and i loved every single minute of it..........shame it didn't last long enough!

From the Zorb centre we made our way to a place called agroventures, it was basically an adventure centre with a number of different activities on offer; freefall simulation, racing bike things, bungy, swoop, jetboat etc. A number of people from our bus, including Katie, did the swoop which was just like a massive swing. Three of them (Katie, Jack and Eran) were all in sleeping bag like things attached together, then pulled up 40m above the ground, where Eran then had to pull a cord which released them causing them to all swing towards the ground. Brilliant to watch the boys faces.......scared out of their wits!hahahaha!

After everyone had finished at Agroventures, we got back on the bus to make our way to Waitomo. Waitomo is an incredibly small place which has very few buildings, one of which is a hostel. After check-in, we were picked up almost straight away by the company which we were going black water rafting with. On arrival at the rafting centre, we were kitted out in full wetsuits, boots and helmets, and then taken to collect our rubber tubes and shown with the aid of a creek, the correct way to jump backwards into the water and land on our rubber tubes. When all were ready we headed for the tiny little entrance to the cave. In total we were underground in the caves for about an hour. We jumped backwards in our rings off of two waterfalls (not massive ones but very scary), we saw and floated under loads of glow-worms, fumbled our way though little gaps and over holes in the ground, and had to find our own way out of the caves in the pitchblack with all head torches switched off. Apart from the pitchblack parts and the jumping backwards off of waterfalls, i ended up really enjoying myself. I am not sure that i would repeat the experience but at the same time, i am sooooo glad that i did it!

That night we all just a had a couple of drinks in Curlys Bar over the road and ended up having a fairly early night, all shattered from our days activities. One very busy but very enjoyable day!