Yesterday a group of 8 of us from the stray bus hopped off at rotorua after visiting hobbiton. Rotorua is famous for it's geothermal hot pools formed above the volcanoes. They say you can smell rotorua before you can see it! This is definitely true, it stinks! The hot pools release sulphur so there is a constant smell of eggy farts! We stayed here for 2 nights and got to know each other really well (again I was with my Austrian friends Tamara and Sandra). In the ...

This morning we went to Hobbiton, the film set of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit! Now I'm not really a fan of these films but I went along anyway as thought it'd be fun anyway. I'm so glad I did, the film set was so cool! It was set amongst the greenest hills and spectacular scenery. We learnt all about the making of the set; I didn't realise there was so much thought / detail put into it! For example the made a tree because the leaves weren't quite the right ...

After our tiring caving experience we hopped back on the bus on our way to mourea, for our Maori cultural experience. This was not like something I've ever done before and don't imagine ever will do again! I kept thinking 'am I dreaming?' 'Is this actually happening?!' It was so funny! We were greeted by 2 of the Maori family. They speak another language and throughout were trying to teach us. They are covered in tribal tattoos and if they have them on their fac...

Yesterday I hopped back on the bus nice and early with my two Austrian friends to join a new group and we headed to the famous waitomo caves. We could choose which level of activity we did in the cave, the main purpose was to sea the glow worms on the ceiling. The caves were privately owned by the farmers or whoever owned the land above it (pretty cool, you buy a house with some land and a cave is discovered; it's now yours that you can make a fortune from leasin...

I started my tour on the stray bus very early on Sunday morning. I was quite glad to be leaving the city and straight away not disappointed by the simply stunning scenery of the North Island of New Zealand. This definitely made up for the cold weather. I instantly made friends, quickly with the only other english girl on the tour (Kate from Devon), 2 girls from Austria, a guy from Canada and 2 guys from Germany. In total in the group there was about 20 of us. Our...