We have now reached 4000 km's and counting!

After another frosty night I dropped Netti off in sulphur city Rotorua while I had a bash at white water rafting. The highlight being a 7m drop at Okere falls, awesome! Had an absolute ball on the Kaituna River including swimming alongside the raft and down a rapid, and being thrown overboard when we collided into another raft...more fun than it sounds I assure you.

That evening we had a Maori cultural experience and Hangi dinner. The compere was a very amusing Maori Eddy Murphy type who managed to greet the whole room of people in over 15 different languages! The male members of the tribe arrived by Waka (war canoe), which was pretty impressive in the dark however the water looked a trifle cold to be wearing traditional Maori dress (precious little).

We also walked through the forest; saw glow worms and the sacred spring where there resides a meter long eel!

The highlight of the evening was the Maori cultural performance where the members of the tribe demonstrated traditional singing, fighting and of course the famous Haka! We then had a fantastic Hangi dinner where we both overloaded on meat, roast potatoes and long missed gravy (Netti was very happy).

Next day we upped and left for Hamilton, which wasn't very spectacular poor Hamilton, but we did drive down the final straight of the V8 Supercar race track somehow! There had been a big race the day before and the line markings etc were still on the road!

We are now over on the Coramandel Peninsula where we went snorkelling this morning at Gemstone Cove. Although a trifle cold for the wetsuit-less (me) the visibility underwater was fantastic and we saw plenty of 'fush' (Kiwi for fish!) and even investigated a bit of a cave (getting very brave!) Spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on beautiful Hahei beach.

Finally we went over to Hot Water Beach where at low tide hot water bubbles up through the sand and you can dig your own spa bath! Alas, the tide never really went out that far so it didn't expose much hot water, but the one that was dug up was bloody hot!!

Sea Kayaking at Cathedral Cove lined up for tomorrow, which should be good!

Gnite all

Chris & Netti xxx