Sixth day in New Zealand now! Suprisingly there have been less sheep than we expected, but a strange amount of cows. BUt more importantly on the first three days on the bus, we had some thrilling experiences! Its gonna be a long blog.............
We left auckland on sunday for the 1st leg of our tour, to a coastal town called Mercury bay(Whitianga). We travel with a group of about 50 people of different nationalities (althohg mainly english), so its great to meet lots of new people. Each day on the tour we are able to do a variety of activites, some for free, others at discounted prices. As it was valentines day, our bus driver and guide, Kane, set up a 'speed dating' scenario to enable everyone to get to know each other, where we had to find the person who had our ticket and vice versa. Not the easiet thing to do on a bus, when 50 people are all shuffling around trying to do the same thing!
Our first stop on the journey was a place called hot water beach, famous for its hot springs. The first couple we stepped in were quite cold so we started to wonder what all the fuss was about - until we got further along the beach. The we discovered why. It was surprising how hot they were. Some were pleasantly warm, others you weren't able to pout your feet in without screaming like a girl and getting burnt! we then moved along to a place called cathedral cove, which involved a long, scenic walk down to a section of beach surrounded by impressive cliffs. It is such a beautiful country. Our hostel that night was run by an old couple who made us feel right at home and cooked us a lovely meal.
An early start the next morning on our way to a city called Rotarua. There were a few activities to choose from that day, and me, chris and 5 others chose to do the skyline luge. Our introduction to the world of extreme sports in New Zealand. You take a ride up a mountain in a gondala, collect your helmet and go over to the tracks. A luge in this case is effectively a sledge with wheels and a handlebar. You sit on it like you would in a go kart, but control the speed completely with the handlebars, as the tracks are all just dowhill so no need to worry about accelarating. There was a choice of three tracks; scenic, immediate and advanced. As we had 5 turns, we thought we'd build it up by starting with the scenic track etc. I have to tell you it is one of the best and most enjoyable things we have done so far. Honestly, we could have spent all day there. After the scenic route, things get slightly tougher, but at the same time all the more quicker! For a 'vehicle' so simple, you really pick up some speed going down the hill.

At the hostel in the evening, we met two australians who took us along to our first toga night, along with the two swedish people we had met on the bus. The six of us walking into the bar dressed in bedsheets was an impressive sight'. Can't think what really made us do it, but I do remember the phrase "free drinks" cropping up somewhere!