On friday the 13th of September we arrived into Rotorua. This is the most volcanic area of New Zealand- normally the earths crust is about 40km thick; here it is only 5km! There's lots of geothermal action all around the town an in the surrounding area! rotorua is a lake created due to a volcanic eruption. After arrive on Friday a group of us went on the luge! We got a gondolier up the hill to the top and were given helmets and small go-cart things.. Then we race...

Today we headed to Waitomo to see the glow worm caves. After an early start we headed to a small town called Paeroa. A traditional L&P Kiwi fizzy drink was originally made there so we had a tourist photo next to a giant bottle and tried it too! :) The plan for the afternoon was to go tubing through the caves however due to an epic amount of rain the caves got flooded and it was cancelled! As a compromise we went for a walk through the limestone caves and saw...

On Wednesday we got up and on the bus for 0830! Finally heading out of Auckland to Hot Water Beach which is on the coramandel. We went for a walk down onto the beach at Cathedral Cove which is where some of The Chronicles of Narnia (Prince Casbian) was filmed- gorgeous! After that we went down onto the beach near our hostel area and we dug our own hot water pools to chill in. The warm water is caused by a strip of hot lava under the sand in a particular area.. ...

Yesterday I set of on kiwi experience! I have been up to the bay of islands. Me and a couple of girls went for a walk to explore the area yesterday and today Emily and I have been out on kayaks! Pretty fun! Just waiting to get the bus back down to Auckland! It's been nice and sunny and the area is so peaceful an pretty! First stop= done!

The past few days have all seemed to roll into one! Thursday was really wet so Clive and I watched 'The Worlds Fastest Indian' and just chilled out. Friday we went for tea to the local pub which was yummy! On Saturday morning Clive and I headed into dome valley armed with machetes again to cut some more of the mountain bike route. We then headed out for a walk along the coastline in Mangawhai which took us up lots of steps and gradually brought us back in a loop...