Rotorua is in a thermal activity zone, there’s tonnes of it here, that’s why the whole place smells permanently of bad eggs (sulphur). We didn’t get up too early as I’d slept crap due to my cold, it’s definitely got worse. We set off around 10.00am to Kuiria Park where you can walk around thermal activity for free. We found it, parked up and took a walk, we definitely knew we’d found it due to all of the steam coming off the park, even the drains steam around here. We had a walk and were amazed at how huge the bubbling mud pools were, there were huge lakes bubbling and steaming too. Each area had been sectioned off but you could see where old ones had been or new ones about to start because the grass was dead all around the area. It was incredible that this was all around us. We spent a good hour here walking round taking it all in, I think it was a good thing that I had a cold because I couldn’t smell anything and apparently the sulphur smell was pretty bad, James could still smell it with a cold. We moved onto just south of Rotorua where there is a Redwood forest to walk around for free. We made some lunch here before setting off on our walk. We chose the hour and a half walk around although it was probably a little too much seen as we’re both full of cold but it was beautiful to be among the redwoods which were brought here from California and planted in 1901. We had a really nice walk and headed back to the van, we haven’t really had time to work out where next so we really could do to find somewhere to get organised. We went back to Rotorua as they have a cheap supermarket and petrol station then headed north passing through the towns of Bethlehem and Judea on the way. We found a free campsite which was really peaceful and decided to stay. The place was covered with rabbits, it was dark when we got there so the headlights startled them all and they ran. We got out with the torch to look around, when we shone the torch at the trees they made a huge flapping and squeaking noise, we presume it was bats. We like this place already.