Hi everyone!

We've now picked up our rental car (cute little baby blue Dihatsu!) and driven pretty far already! We went up to Piahia in the Bay of Islands first and had a boat cruise around the isalnds. We saw dolphins really close to our boat (you can see Philippa's toes in a lot of the pictures!) and we stopped for lunch on a beautiful island with spectaular views (and sheep!). We also visited a huge waterfall at night which was all lit up, but the photos aren't too great so we won't put those in!

Next we drove over to Waipou forest to check out the "Tane Mahuta" which the Maori's believe is the father of all living things. It's a MASSIVE tree. Try to spot tiny little us in the photos! Then we drove straight on down to the Coromandel peninsul, and went to see Cathedral cove in the late afternoon sun. It was just as well we went quite late because the beach was packed! But it really is a pretty place so well worth it.

Today we drove down to Waitomo glowworm caves. We had two tours- one in a boat in the pitch black looking up at the glowworms which looked like little stars (so cool!) and the other was walking and squeezing through fairly small caves with waterfalls (which sound a lot bigger than they really are when you're in a cave!).

We've now just driven to Rotorua and plan to do some Zorbing and looking at the geysers tomorrow so watch this space!

D and P xxxxxxxxxxxx