Saturday 7th AprilWe arrived in Rotorua yesterday and nothing prepared me for the smell. Ok - so we'd been to a geo-thermal park and the smell was very bad there of rotten eggs from all the sulphur and acid in the air. But I hadn't expected it in the middle of the town. Peeeoooooh! Stinky stinky very stinky!We go to the Maori village in the evening where they formally welcome us in by shouting and waving large sticks at us! Pretty scary stuff. They're...

Friday 6th April - Easter Good FridayWe drive to Orakei Korako which is thermal park site. We wander through bubbling hot springs and scarpa's that look like a planet's surface with an amazing array of colours. There are geysers with boiling water bubbling out of them and a stunning geothermal cave. The water in the cave's pool will clean your jewellery if you leave it in there for 5 minutes! We wander past mud pools that plop and hiss - it's like...

Thursday 5th AprilWe go fishing on Lake Taupo in the afternoon. I'm intrigued to see the difference between lake and sea fishing as I've only ever fished in the sea with Dad and I've always really enjoyed that.It's a nice day for it. A little cloudy so not too hot but no rain in sight. It's a lovely little boat and the 15 horse power Honda engine whips us across the lake. Apparently Lake Taupo is the size of Singapore and is the largest lake i...

Tuesday 3rd AprilI'm so excited about today. I'm walking the Tongariro Crossing - one of the best one day walks in New Zealand. It's a 17km hike with an 800metre ascent up Mount Ngaurahoe, then a 1200m descent down the back of Mount Tongariro. Simon is going off fishing in Lake Taupo to see if he can catch something for our dinner. Yum. I meet Gary and Sasha on the shuttle bus to the start of the walk. Gary is a Scotsman and Sasha is from Toronto. We ...

Monday 2nd AprilWe drive to Levin and meet Justine's parents. Her Dad runs a deer farm so we head up there and meet their pet deer Alice. I've never been so close to one in my life - it's amazing. Alice is just lovely and thinks that Justine's Dad is her Mum. How cute. He tells us all about how was one of the first people to start actually farming deer for food around 30 yeras ago and walks us through all the yards and shows us the antlers which a...