we spent 3 days in Windy Wellington which was plenty of time to see and do everything. We spent a morning in the fantastic Te Papa museum and did a little alking tour of the city. Also visited the tattoo museum which was dreadful, basically looked like someones house with a few posters on the wall. We went to probably the best mexican restaurant in the world, flying burrito brothers and ate to much and spent to much aswell!

We met Kelly and Rosie for lunch one day and spent about 4hours gassing before we realised what the time was! It was great to see them but also really weird! Valentines night we had a romantic group dinner (all 6 of us!) then we dragged the guys along to the cinema to watch 27 dresses. personally i think the guys enjoyed it more than us girls!

We got the Kiwi bus further north to Lake Taupo & stayed in Urban Retreat backpackers, a pleasant change to base! Myslef, Jo & Katie did the Lake Tapo sky dive!!! 15,000ft high aswell! got the dvd & photos which turned out great. We had to wait a while because the weather turned bad but as soon as the sun was back out we were going up in that tiny plane! It was terrifying being in that small plane & then hanging out the side but once I was falling I forgot my fear and loved it! I had a very bad landing though, myself and the instructor landed on our bums!

18 feb we took the Kiwi bus up to Rotorua and after check in went swimming in the hostels pool. Later that day we went to a traditional Maori cultural show which was fantastic. They did the Huka at the end which for me was the highlight and it was a bit scary! After the show they serve up a huge buffet dinner thats cooked underground, very tasty!

The following day we hired a mini van and the 10 of us went to Waitomo to go Black Water Rafting. 7 of us did the black labyrinth adventure which last about 3hours and includes 1 hour underground. After getting into our super sexy wetsuits, boots and helmets we did a practise backwards jump into the river to test out our tube. then we walked a short way to the cave entrance and crawled nside. e sat just inside the mouth of the cave to allow our eyes to adjust to the light then set off through the cave. We did 2 backwards jumps from waterfalls and floated, all joined up, along the water in pitch black looking up at the glow worms. When it was all over we got hot bagels & soup to warm us up.

Our last day in Rotorua the guys played golf, girls went shopping, went swimming then luging which was so much fun! we took the gondola up the hill then had 3 runs on different tracks on our little tobbaggan on wheels. Mark & Danny crashed and Brad came off ripping his jeans and knee in the process!

Auckland was pretty much nothing except going out drinking, shopping and fast food. We had Katies birthday here where we all dressed up in outrageous clothes and we cooked a massive indian meal for all of us to celebrate her 21st birthday.

Next was the bay of Islands which was very pretty. We had a nice little hot tub in the hostel but also had an old couple in our room that snored and got naked in front of everyone! We did a day in Russell, taking a ferry over there to explore. we went to NZ's first church and first pub and wound up at a gorgeous little beach where i found crabs & starfish in the rock pools. Unfortunately for Jo one of the crabs ended up in her bag and was discovered as we boarded the ferry home!

Back to Auckland for a few days, the guys left for Fiji and we leave tomorrow!