Well its been nearly 2 weeks since i last wrote and it has been an action packed couple of weeks. After leaving queenstown we had to go back through christchurch and kaikoura where we had already been but this time the dolphin swimming was on so i went swimming with dolphins!It was an amazing experience but also the coldest experience ever (or so i thought, keep reading...!) Off the coast there is a pod of about 100-200 dusky dolphins and we saw them all jumping through the water and doing acrobatics, so cool to watch so many of them swimming together. We then got thrown in the water as they swam past and had snorkels on so we saw them swim right underneath us and in front of us, close enough to touch. We were in the water about 2 mins, and that is literally all you could take as it was freezing, even in the wetsuits. we then got picked up by the boat, caught the dolphins up and thrown in again. We did this about 4 times, was such good experience but my god when we had to get out and get changed it was pretty chilly!

We then headed to the north island on the ferry. First stop was wellington, a nice city but very little to do here. I didnt feel great while i was here so basically spent a couple of days sleeping and recovering!didnt miss out on much as there was literally nothing else to do but shopping in this city. We then went up to Taupo, which has the largest lake in the southern hemisphere. It is massive, looks like the sea. Unless you are skydiving here or paying loads of money for activities there is not much to do here either so we chilled in the hostel alot watching dvds!We did manage to do a 2 hour walk to this waterfall which was pretty good. Most exercise i had done in a while!

We then went to waitomo where we went black water rafting. This was an amazing experience. You basically go caving, as they have a huge netowrk of caves here. So we had to walk through these caves in the pitch black apart from our head torches. We then floated along the streams on these rubber rings and had to jump off a few small ledges backwards into pools!It was so much fun but seriously now this was the coldest i have ever been in my life. we had to paddle along in the water and they didnt even give us gloves and the water is about 5 degrees!My god it was cold!We then turned our torches off and saw all the glowoworms on the roof of the caves. they look just like stars, was amazing just floating on these tubes underground. One of the best things i have done so far.

The next day i decided to continue the trend of being cold by going white water rafting in rotorua!That was also so much fun but again, pretty chilly!We went over this 7 m waterfall which is the biggest drop you can raft over in the world, pretty scary but we stayed afloat, amazingly. apparently alot of people capsize there!I thought we might stay relatively dry but the instructors made us jump into a rapid and float down the river for a bit. BBrrrrrrrr!!!Freezing again for the third time in a week!I dont why i keep doing this to myself. Luckily we then went and spent the afternoon in the hot pools. Rotorua is a geothermal hot spot so we went to these pools and just warmed up for a couple of hours.

Next day we went luging. This is where you sit on trays with wheels and race down a track on the hillside. So much fun, you can get to some pretty fast speeds!Last night we also went to a Maori cultural night, where we got to learn about maori culture and watch tribal dances and hakas. We then had an amazing feast, the most gorgeous all you can eat buffet with pudding. we were quite stuffed after that!Really good night though.

Today we have arrived in auckland for the weekend, and then we head north for a few days to the tip of NZ. Only one week left as fly to fiji for some sunshine next fri now!

xxx