woke early to watch the sun rise which was so beautiful! after returning to bed for a while we headed off to visit some local sights before heading down to our last hostel for the trip........a maori family's house! after the traditional greeting (touching noses!) we chilled out and took in the view!.......unfortunately their spa pool was broken so we caught up on the celebrity gossip on sky tv!!! yay !!! we had the biggest tea ever and even had some apple crumbl...

got up early to go for my very first surfing lesson! there were no wet suits in my size so i had to borrow the instructors one ( he is very skinny - called magoo!) unfortunately surfers dont tend to wear anything under their wetsuits! uurrgghh.........no choice unfortunately! well 2 hours later ( and lots of water up the nose!) i had mastered the 3 step method and was successfully standing up and surfing the green (before the wave breaks!) apparently i have...

after getting to sleep at 2.30 am i woke again at 6am (gi jane!) to do the tongariro crossing. this is an 8 hour trek across a few volcanoes including mount doom from lord of the rings! not much to say except seriously hard walk with amazing scenery -worth the pain! - see pics! sun 19th well i deserved a quiet day so after watching janine do a sky dive we went to play crazy golf (i got a hole in one! - hooray!) took a walk to some natural hot pools for ...

today we went to Te Puia thermal reserve where i saw the real life bog of eternal stench! (think labyrinth - david bowie film we loved as kids!) Well.............it had the farting sounds and the farting smells! basically just a stinking, farting boling hot mud pool! the geisers were so cool - boiling hot water bursting out from the middle of the earth! its a bit scary to think what is going on below our feet!! after treating myself to a big piece of lemon m...

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...