Yippee free kayaks at the camp site! Darren got in okay as I was holding his kayak but as soon as I tried to get on mine in the water I went (Darren was no help as he was too busy laughing his head off as I resurfaced with sand in me knickers). Two attempts later and we're off, crashing into tree branches and the river bank as we go and going round in circles - who says you need skill to navigate a kayak? We were out for about 2 hours and some fishermen moved ...

OH MY GOD!!!!! To all at GBA and ECM thanks for the money we used it to do this: We went on the Swoop first - you're strapped into a sling, told to link your arms together, lifted up into the air on a crane and then told to pull your rip cord on the count of three and off you swing at 130kph towards the earth. Darren didn't like going up and I was laughing hysterically (when we can download pictures you can see the evidence for yourself as Johnny Darren says ...

We've been here 3 days now and have rested well. We found the expensive thermals and then the cheap ones - guess which one we did? The Thermal village we went to was ran by Maori and is called Whakarewarewa, we saw a staged performance of songs and dances which were good and learnt how to do the hokey kokey in Maori language. The thermals and mud pools were interesting and you could feel how hot and thin the ground was beneath your feet. Took another walk rou...