Had another very early start this morning, getting up at 6.45am so we were ready to leave on the Magic Bus at 7.45. Yes, I know that's probably not that early for full-time workers but we are meant to be on holiday! And I'm going to try to make the most of that fact for our final month. That's right, a month today we will be back in blighty, ready for the Christmas build up.

So we headed south today bound for Waitomo in The King Country. On the way we stopped off at Paeroa for a tea break. It's the home of their homegrown soft drink Lemon and Paeroa (slogan: "World Famous in New Zealand") - nope, we'd never heard of it either. That didn't stop me getting my photo taken next to the 7m tall bottle though! After that little detour we drove on to Waitomo.

The main attraction there is the Glow Worm Caves so went on a little tour. We descended into the cavern past huge stalagmites and stalagtites, lead by a tour guide who was scarily like the one from that episode of League of Gentlemen. He had the same slightly bored but eerily slick patter (though we suspect he'd learned the script off by heart because when anyone asked any questions he was stumped). Fortunately though, this guy didn't end the tour by confessing to having a hand in the death of a small child in the caves.

After a walk around we got in a little boat and floated along the river in the cave, admiring the hundreds of glow worms twinkling above our heads, like a blanket of stars. It was pretty cool. It only took an hour to do the tour so the rest of the day was spent killing time before swapping Magic Bus (saying goodbye to Nate, sadly, but we'll be reunited with him on Thursday when we travel to Taupo). It took us about two hours to get to Rotorua, where we are now, staying in the swishest hostel of the trip so far.

Haven't really had a chance to look around Rotorua yet, but I'll report on that tomorrow. And it'll be a solo excursion because Jim is off to tackle a hardcore mountain biking track for the day. I, on the other hand, plan to check out some Maori culture and then go relax at the spa (as Rotorua is a site of geothermal activity there are natural hot springs all over the shop). Winner!

Lots of love x x x