So we are just over a week into our trip in New Zealand and we have done so much already and seen some amazing views! We've free camped at some of the most beautiful places and met some brilliant randoms along the way!! We dug our own spa bath at a beach where the carbon dioxide bubbles up through the sand and heats the water to a temperature that burns! Needless to say we dug the best hole on the beach and others in pure jealousy wanted to sit in ours and enjoy the free jacuzzi! We have been existing on a mainly Baked Bean and Cheese diet though will soon be changing to noodles. Food, and ESPECIALLY alcohol is feckin expensive so nothing to exotic is doable on our budget.

That said we have spent some money doing some great things such as Luge rides down a kilometre long track where we raced each other looking like elmits wearing the most ridiculous helmets! We also spent a day abseiling and climbing down caves in a place called Waitomo. The caves also have Glow worms which are only native to Oz and New Zealand. WIth the helmet lights off they look like stars on the cave ceilings which is really cool! We did learn however from our caving guides that they are actually maggots and the glow is actually a chemical reaction for their waste. Thius literally means SHINY s*** but as the guide explained Glow Maggots with shiny s*** doesn't really pull in the punters so they been named Glow worms for the sake of marketing.

The best thing however was seeing me in a wetsuit. Defo pushed the boundaries of my sexuality wearing that! We both had a great time considering Laura upon entering the cave put her hand on a nemesis spider and then had to abseil 20m down over a waterfall in the dark!! We climbed through holes you can hardly fit through and practically swum through some of them. It was also made more fun by the fact that we had had 3 days of the most intense rain that all the natives remarked was the worst they'd ever seen!

We've also done the cultural visit to a Mauri village and watched them perform the Haka. This town called Rotorua smells like sulphur but has live giesers which shoot water metres into the air! Here we also saw Kiwi's the iconic bird of this land. Alot bigger than I was expecting, an odd looking nocturnal ball of fluff that due to severly decreased numbers can only be seen in conservation areas or in captivity.

We finished the day off today at a polynesian spa which looked out over a volcanic landscape, yes i know its a hard life and now we go for beer........

Ben