Hello from day 4 of our tour! It's been a busy last few days. On Saturday morning we climbed on the bus and first headed up to the top of Mount Eden where we would have had a fabulous view over the whole of Auckland if it had not been all foggy and rainy! We then headed out of town for 3 hours to Hahei where first we went to the hot water beach. Our guide told us that we could dig a hole in the middle of the sand that would then fill up with warm water. He didn't tell us it would be hot enough to burn your foot! Of course I did. Quite amazing. There was also a pod if dolphins really close to the shore which we enjoyed watching whilst standing with our feet cooking. We then headed to our accomodation and from there walked to Cathedral Cove which was beautiful. The beach can only be accessed on foot and has a huge arch of rock in the middle of it that does look like a catgedral. You can walk through it to a pinnacle. After enjoying the view we walked back to the caravan park that was our resting place for the night and enjoyed a bbq cooked by our driver.

The next morning it was back on the bus to go to Raglan, the surfing hotspot of the country with a legendary left break (technical surf speak) anyway the weather was cold again and we imagined the sea would be colder than a penguins nose so instead enjoyed sitting and watching everyone from the beach. In the evening we had another lot of yummy fish and chips- we're really making the most of it's availability!

Yesterday we went to Waitomo caves and did 4 hours of caving. After changing into wetsuits, helmets and boots that they got second hand from the slaughterhouse we dissapeared into a hole in the floor. We abseiled down underground waterfalls, crawled through tiny spaces half submerged in freezing cold water and saw spectacular gloworms. It was really good fun and the rock formations were beautiful with staligmites thousands of years old. After emerging into the light and warming up we went to see something truly surreal. Angora rabbit shearing. Yes you read that right. These huge fluffy bunnies are clipped 4 times a year and produce a really soft wool that these funny old ladies use to knit with. The poor rabbit ends up looking very funny with it's new close crop and I can't imagine ours tolerating being shorn.

That evening our bus were going to stay at a "Maori cultural experience" we're not really into human zoos and think it's a bit weird to pay to go and watch them peform when it's because of us that it's not their country any more so we got dropped off outside the town of Rotorua and got a local bus in. It meant that this morning we got to go and enjoy a hot thermal mineral bath which was nice. The whole area is surrounded with hot baths and even hot rivers caused by the fault lines running through the islands. Everywhere you look there is smoke rising up from behind the bushes. The water was very soft and silky but absolutely stunk of sulphur. When the bus picked us back up we went to see a boiling hot mud pool which was bubbling away with the occasional big explosion. As I write this we are now in Taupo by the lake. We wanted to do the Tongarigo crossing tomorrow in the national
park but sadly it is shut because of bad weather.

We're feeling a bit fed up of the bus tour to be honest- it's a good way to get around if you have no imagination but we never seem to stay anywhere long enough to properly see it. We can hop off but because it is winter the next bus is 3 days behind us and that doesn't really fit well either. We've decided to cut our losses and not regret not seeing anything by trying to get a campervan in Wellington. It's what we should have done in the first place really but never mind. Hopefully there's some available with 24 hours notice!