Another blue sky day and a jet lagged Gaz made for a good start. We headed out to Wai-O-Tapu, a 'thermal wonderland'. We got our tickets and headed (with lots of others) to see the Lady Knox Geyser. Gaz, with great cynicism (and what later proved to be great accuracy) suggested that they had a button to eat the geyser off. I'm not going to spoil it for future visitors but I will say that the eruption was induced! The highlight for me was seeing the Champagne Pool in real life. A so commonly used image for NZ it was great to see it in real life. I hadn't expected the engulfing with hot stinky egg smelling steam though. I'm sure it does wonders for one's complexion!

We then headed to Te Puia, a Maori cultural centre and arts and crafts institute. Gaz was super pleased to see the Pohutu geyser erupt of its own accord and reach greater heights than Lady Knox. We saw kiwis, which confused me as I was looking for a much smaller bird in the darkened house, when I spotted a large fluffy rock, which turned out to be a Kiwi.

We watched wood carving and I got some good design ideas for future silver work. We also went to a cultural show where we watched the Hakka amongst other performances whilst learning a bit about Maori culture.

We finished the day with the obligatory dip in the pool followed by sushi, washed down with a bottle of wild sheep cider, which was very nice indeed.