Kiwi Experience Bus, yeh! Been looking forward to this for ages.
Started the day in Auckland, with our driver Kane, who took us to Mount Eden, which is an extinct volcano shaped as a grassy crater. From here, we had beautiful views of the city.
Then we headed south east along the coromandel, thought the little town of Thames, seeing the Oldaman islands out in the sea. Also travelled through the kopu mountain range. Our first beautiful stop was Cathedral cove. It's the picture on the front of our kiwi experience book and also where Macklemore 'this is the moment' song was filmed. We did a nice little hike there and some crazy people jumped into the water for a wee swim inside the caves. No thank you! Then onto our accommodation at Hot Water Beach top 10 holiday park. The rooms were pretty nice at $30 pp but as we had a tent, we camped for $21 pp. it's a bit annoying how they charge per person here whereas in America, it's per tent. I well, the grass was comfy so can't complain. Sat up that night having a few drinks, chatting to people on the bus. Then onto bed for us. Some other crazy people got back up at 11.30pm to go to the beach and dig a hole for hot water, as we missed the low tide earlier in the day. But as we'd already done it, we gave it a miss.

The next day, we made our way to Waitomo. On the way we stopped for a walk through some old mining tunnels, pretty cool. Tgen stayed at Kiwi Paka hostel. This was great at it was twin rooms. A bit of space and a good night sleep, woo hoo. The rest of the day was spent chilling out really, and walking along the Waitomo walkway. Then for a few drinks in the bar later that night, getting to know Laura and Nick.

The next day, there were still some people black water rafting, so Kane took us on 'one of the best short walks in New Zealand' called the Rukuari walkway. It's through native bush, lots of ferns, with the chance to walk through and/or observe some caves. It's apparently better at night, when you can see the glow-worms. But still, a really lovely walk. We had A long afternoon of driving, dropping people off at Hobbiton then onto the hostel. This is the first place we started to make use of our BBH cards. So whilst most people stayed at Base Rotorymua, we stayed at Spa Lodge. (A bit cheaper than Base.) my first impressions of the place weren't that great, but it was fine really, I was just being fussy. The rooms were tiny but comfortable. The kitchens were interesting with writing on the walls, but had all the utensils we needed. And they had a hot tube, filled with geothermal my heated water. That afternoon, we had a walk around town then a chilled evening. We actually headed into a Citizens Advice Bureau, to see if they could help is get the refund we were due from Fiji, so at least we've got the ball rolling now, as it had been a month.

We were up early and away to the Skyline to Luge. Luges are funny little go cart things with a handle bar to steer, pull back and forward to stop and go. We got three goes: easy intermediate and advanced, each time being taken back up by the ski lift. It was a lot if fun and well worth the $40.
We didn't know what to do with ourselves this afternoon so we walked around the main geothermal area of Rotorua, around sulphur bay, eventually reaching the redwoods. On the way, Kenny lifted up a sulphur rock, and a steam hole formed under it; he dug to the centre if the earth!! When at the redwoods, we just went for a shirt half hour walk, then made our way back to the hostel. We must have walked for about 4 hours; good exercise tho and actually getting used to the eggy smell now. In the evening, we went to the Lava Bar beside Base, then headed back at about 11.30. When we arrived in Rotorua, Kenny was on the waiting list for the bus to Taupo, so we himmed and haaaed about whether we should stay an extra night or two. In the end, we emailed Kiwi to find out if he was on the bus, he was so we hustled decided to leave the next day. Just gotta leave some things to fate.