After waking up at Karibu Creek we hit the road south to Rotorua stopping on the way to watch an hour or two of competition show jumping (how lucky I was Jo spotted this as we drove past!!) arriving early evening we checked into the YHA hostel which we have to say is the nicest hostel you will ever stay in...... Checked out what Rotorua had to offer, quite unusual seeing steam rise from parks and even peoples gardens due to the geothermal activity in the area!

The following morning....up early again as wanted to check out one of the main geothermal parks here called Orakei Korako Cave and Thermal Park 'The Hidden Valley'. We arrived here for the opening time of 8am and we were the first and only people here! We caught a boat over to the island and we had the whole island to ourselves for our one hour walk! The valley was really unique with natural bubbling hot springs and mud pools! You get to walk 120feet into a cave where at the bottom is a lagoon thermal pool! All good fun! We later found out this was where some of the programme 'Walking with Dinosaurs was filmed!

We then headed back to the car for a race against time to be at the Omega car rental offices before the last shuttle bus left for Auckland airport.... Jo successfully avoided a 5 car pile up using her super hero senses to move our car forward just enough to avoid a collision (she wanted me to mention the crash that nearly was!!)…… We made it just in time blocking the airport bus in so it could not leave without us!

Next stop Fiji……. Bye Bye New Zealand!