We are envious of the warm people in Britain. Tonight we have been given hot water bottles by the hostel - this does not suggest it will be a warm night! We began our road trip of New Zealand's North island in Wellington the capital city. It has life and culture and more than one supermarket - a big city by NZ standards! We joined a tour around parliament building (really good) and rode the tram (cheap and easy) which seems to be of use only to students at the hilltop university, and tourists. We also went to the Wellington gallery where we entered a Maori meeting room and house (shoes off of course). In the evening we went to see one of the shows playing at the New Zealand comedy festival. The show was based around a lad who worked at Subway restaurants; 90 minutes later as we tucked into our Subway dinner (the first in 4 months) , we agreed that the show had not influenced our choice of foods!

We picked up a hire car, declined the clearly pointless windscreen insurance, and drove North, gaining a chipped windscreen within the 1st hour. (we later found out that some private insurance policies allow people to have upto 10 windscreens changed per year!) - Traveller Hint - take the windscreen insurance option! Thinking it is going to cost us about 300 dollars oops.

At Rotorua (centre of North Island), it is the centre of NZ underground geothermal activity. We treated ourselves to the Polynesian Spa, boasting beautiful lake side views; we bathed in a private rock pool in hot spring water with the "healthy benefits of Sulphur (rotten egg smell) and heated by Radium rocks". Although not a nuclear scientist, I think Radium gas is a bad thin and remain unconvinced about breathing in Sulphur.

Now we were fired up by the radium and smelling of rotten eggs, we went Zorbing. Imagine a small plastic bubble suspended inside a big plastic bubble with people inside the smaller bubble. This is a Zorb. Then roll it down hill with us and a bucket of warm water inside and you are in a washing machine! 20 seconds of us sloshing about inside the ball as it rolled downhill and we had completed our first Zorb, laughing all the way. Fantastic. Just like a great water slide.

We moved on the the thermal wonderland where we saw a geyser (jump started with a piece of organic soap dropped in it) and various other hot pools, bubbling mud etc

The next leg took us to Whaitomo, where we went underground to go cave tubing. We went 30m underground and sat in inflatable tyres whilst being led through tunnels in darkness with glow-worms on the ceiling looking like stars. A waterslide and a backward fall were added in and we ended up 100m underground, meaning a long climb up a wooden staircase!