Arrived in Roturua to the smell of rotten egg! nice! The geothermal lakes and sulphur pools make Rotorua stink of this eggy smell. Rotorua is also the Maouri capital of NZ.

Our hostel was probably our nicest one yet, Sunset Spa Lodge. Comfortable, friendly and just not like any of the other hostels because it seemd more homely and it also had a free spa pool!!

Seeing as this was our last stop before heading back to Whakatane we decided to do a few activites. Went to Wai O Tapu thermal wonderland which was like going back thousands of years to jurassic times. Bubbling mud pools, slimey green lakes and steam coming off them all and also geysers firing water up to 15 meters high. It was facinating! The pictures should do it a bit more justice.

We then went to a Maori village in the evening for a proper Hangi meal, where the food is cooked underground for about seven hours! It was amazing, lamb and chicken, kumala (sweet potatoe), potatoes and veg. After the meal our tribe of 19 nations went to visit the Maori tribe. They arrived on their waka (war canoe) doing all the chanting, and then we watched a performance of their dances (incluing the haka), and demostrations of the weapons and the facial tattoos. It was brilliant, and to end the night we walked through a small little zoo type thing, where we saw glow worms and kiwis.

On the last day we did something a bit more adventurous, so we got a gondola up to see the Rotorua skyline and did a luge ride back down the hill! It was so good we did it three times!

It was a pretty good end to our little stint around the north island. We got the bus back to Whakatane on xmas eve, where the weather was beautiful and got picked up by Steve from the bus station.