Having such a great time on the North Island or as the Kiwi's would say everything here is sweet!!! It's such a beautiful place with so many adventure sports to get involved with or as our driver would say "To get amongst!"

We began our tour in Auckland and the headed to a tiny surf town called Raglan, here we explored the coastline and saw some great views out to Cathedral Cove. The scenery around this area was lovely and reminded me abit of the Great Ocean Road in Oz.

On one of our stops we visited the town of Roturua, also known as Vegas and also known as Rotton-rua. The reason for the last name has to be because the whole place stinks of hydrogen sulphide, in other words the rotten egg smell!! Other than that minor problem Roturua is an ok town and we made the most of its amazing geothermal and mud pools. Roturua is defiantly a great place to get freebie spa treatment due to it having so many thermal and mud pools dotted around the town,who needs expensive health spas when you have Rotten-rua !!! The only hitch is that it's freezing here, all the thermal pools are outside and so we have literally been getting changed into out swimwear and spiriting to the thermal pools. It's fantastic once you're in but when you come out is pretty chilly! Have also seen some bubbling mud pools and even collected a load of mud in carrier bags to use as face packs!! Hoping to make use of the mud tonight and all have amazing complexions by the end of the evening! Will let you know how it goes, good or bad.....

We visited a place called Waitomo where we took part in some Haggis Honking. All this is is underwater caving, rock climbing and abseiling. Apparently it gets its name from the person who owns the land where the caves are (?). Anyway the caving was excellent fun and we had a great time abseiling down the sheer drop cave walls. We all loved the unsexy wetsuits, helmets and gigantic white wellies we had to wear! Made you feel like a proper pro -caver but perhaps not the foxiest of looks! The first abseil we did was pretty scary as it had this huge waterfall half way down and was pitch black. Once down here we had to get on our bellies and literally crawl through tunnels and small caves. I must have banged my head about 50 times so was glad of the unflattering helmet I had on!! The whole experience lasted about 3 hours,defiantly a must to do on the north island!! Saw loads of glow worm's aswell.

In Taupo we went Zorbing which is abit like riding in a huge hamster ball down a hill. It's abit of a crazy sport and now I know how my poor hamster must have felt when we kept putting him in his ball to roam around our house!!! Natalie, Emma and me decided to get a Hydro Zorb which was wicked fun as we slide all the way down the hill. We couldn't stop laughing all the way down, was such a bizarre sensation but defiantly worth doing for the laugh factor! We stayed right near Lake Taupo which is the world's largest Crater Lake. Behind it you can see snow capped mountains in the distance, a lovely sight! Our hostel in Taupo specialised in Venu bombs which are a drink of Vodka, red bull style drink and Jagermaster. Must say they give you a nice warm pissed feeling and are a great excuse to warm you up in colder climates.

We visited the beautiful National Park where you can see many of the mountains which were in Lord of the Rings. One of the more famous mountains from Lord of the Rings was Mount Doom which was a fantastic sight to see.

Last night we arrived at our mountain hostel and were so pleased to see it had a hot tube! So what did we do first but get our bikinis on and sprint to the hot tube! Only trouble was that the hostel had this massive beast of a dog, I was convinced it was a wolf or small bear! The dog was friendly enough but when exiting the hot tube into the big chill and running back to the room it would chase you all the way back!

Having a blast so far and enjoying every moment! Off to the Capital of Wellington soon, will keep you up to date on my North Island adventures and will add photos soon!xxxxx