What an adventure the last few days on tour have been!

Visited cathedral cove and then in the evening went to hot spring beach and dug sand pits over springs to make beach baths - this was hilarious, it was absolutely freezing but the water was boiling!

Went for early morning swim in outdoor hotwater mineral pool - also extremely weird but sooo warm and good fun!

From here we headed on to a place called whokahora (the Wh at start is pronounced 'f' so be careful how you say it!) When we got to Whokohora river we went Kayaking negotiating river rapids, the rock garden and a few trees - it was fab fun! Unfortunately we couldn't take our camera's but we were being filmed for a local country culture programme so will hopefully be able to watch it online in feb/march. After the Kayaking we were taken to Blue Duck Lodge. A family run farm in the middle of nowhere but we had a great time! Met some really interesting people who are working there as well as getting to meet melody the pet lamb - so cute! We had an amazing meal which they had hunted for and cooked for us and then they had a surpise for me in the evening. A Scottish guy working there played the bagpipes for us so (being the only Scot) I was forced into a wee dance with Dan the owner of the lodge - it was a good laugh!! The rest of my group are from Switzerland, France and Germany so they found it all very entertaining!!

Yesterday I conquored the Tongariro crossing - it was amazing!! 20k trek up and around mount Tongariro with 'mount Doom' from Lord of the rings in the background. I was also very pround of myself (and two others from the group) for making the additional 3k trek to the Summit of Mount Tongariro in the time we'd been given just to do the crossing (7 1/2 hrs) - It was a challenge, but well worth the effort as the view was absolutely breathtaking!!! The way backdown was also a challenge due to the ash from the last volcanic erruption so we had to practically ski down the mountain front - pretty scary at times!! It was a fab adventure but my poor joints and muscles are feeling it today.

We're heading further South to Wellington today and then express bus trip back to Auckland on Sunday. Monday I fly to Fiji so looking forward to that!!!