got up very early to get on the big green kiwi bus! after a few hours travelling we headed out to a place called cathedral cove where we had a bit of a hike down to a beach with some fantastic scenery! its alot like cornwall in the north island!.......beaches etc all remind me of how lucky i am to live in cornwall! reached our hostel for the night which was so nice! a little place called turtle cove......just like being at home again! it was so nice to have a clean kitchen to use and a tv!!!! all girls in our dorm which was good ...........it felt a bit like a school trip! spent the evening doing some bone carvings! i made a pendant for a necklace............we had to use little drills that sounded like the ones dentists use! every time you finished a stage the guy in charge would check it and everyone would watch as he either nodded or shook his head! it was like being back at school in woodwork classes! finished my necklace first and everyone was laughing at me because the bone carving guy said i was a really good sander! wed 15th up early and back on the bus! we stopped to have a look at a huge gold mine!....then we took a walk in some scary tunnels that used to be used in the old days to move the gold around the mountains! scenery was amazing again! the tunnels were pitch black so a few of us hurried ahead and hid in the dark.............when the others came along they could not see a thing and we could hear them asking if they had come the right way etc!.........yep you guessed it.....we jumped out and scared the life out of them! it was soooo funny! there was a quick stopover in hobbiton where they filmed the village scenes for lord of the rings! we reached rotorua in the afternoon.....home of the geisers ( volcanic hot springs and mud pools etc) this town stinks!!! it smells like the whole town has been farting! the sulpher from the volcanoes makes this the smelliest place on earth! well......this is when i decided to head out of town and go zorbing!!! see pics! me and janine decided to do a hydro-zorb together! for those of you that dont know this basically means you climb inside a big inflatable ball, add some water and roll yourself off a very steep hill! sounds crazy and i was a bit dubious at firstthings got off to a shaky start...... to get into the ball you have to run and dive head first through a little hole......and i managed to get stuck halfway! i would recommend it to anyone though! after you roll yourself off the hill (hamster style) its just like being in a really fast water slide! janine and i screamed from beginning to end and when we finished everyone was laughing so much at the noise we had made! the best fun i have had in ages!!! after that i needed a relaxing evening so after some fish and chips at the lake gigi (a lovely girl from florida) and i spent about 2 hours in the thermal swimming pool at the hostel! it was like getting into a bath!! hmmmmmm!!!