Rotorua is mainly famous for lake, its geo-thermal land and it's very distintive stench! (from the sulphur).

Day 48 - Wed 17th Dec - Rotorua centre

Spent the day walking around the central town area, I went to some sulphur pools that are on the edge of the lake, then along the edge of the lake, then to the park which has lots of sulphur mud pools bubbling away. With a stop for lunch in between all of this this took most of the day.

Cooked a meal in the hostel and just stayed in. It was in the evening that I discovered I was really sunburnt, despite the fact that it had been a cloudy and not particularly hot day. I then learnt from the guys in the hostel that there is a massive hole in the ozone layer above NZ so the sun is incredibly strong even when its not particularly hot. Lesson learnt now, suncream every day!

Day 49 - Thurs 18th Dec - Rotorua - Hell's gate

I had booked to go to a thermal park that was on the outskirts of the town called Hells gate. The ticket included a walk round the park (very similar to the free ones the day before on the side of the lake, but admittedly more impressive), then it was time to change into swimwear and hop into one of the mud pools.

As I had got so burnt the day before, it was a hot day, and I knew I was going to be in a bikini, I had ensured I was covered in suncream that day. However before you get in the pools they make you wash everything off as they chemicals can react with the sulphur, so that was a bit of a waste of time. You are supposed to be in there for a maximum of 20 minutes, but they forgot about me and left me in there for 40 mins! They seemed slightly concerned about whether I was ok when I got out - I was very hot!!

Then it was a quick hop into the sulphur pools (less muddy than previous one), before the bit I had been looking forward to most all day - the massage! It was only half an hour but it was great and very relaxing.

Got back about 5pm for a quick shower and change before heading out for a Maori evening. They have reconstructed what a Maori village would have looked like 150 years ago and re-enacted what a warrier greeting would have been like, then we were able to wander around the village for a bit before going inside for a show which was a story telling of the history of the tribe, and some songs and traditional dances, and of course the haka! Then we had a traditional Maori dinner that had been cooked in pots under the ground. It was quite touristy and a bit cheesy but it was a really entertaining evening and I really enjoyed seeing the haka!

Day 50 - Fri 19th Rotorua to Taupo

It is a relatively short journey from Rotorua to Taupo but we left at 9am and arrived at 5pm. This is becuase we made several stops along the way. The first of which was a geo thermal park. Brilliant, more stinky smelly mud - had really seen enough of it by this point! Had I known we were stopping at this place (which was a compulsory bus stop and cost $30) I wouldn't have paid the small fortune I did to go to Hells gate.

The park we went to was called Wai-O-Tapu, and it definitely was the better park that I'd been to. We had about 45 minutes to rush round and look at it before getting back to the bus, but the first stop was to watch the geyser errupt that errupts daily at 10.30 (with some human intervention). As its becoming the norm on days like this, the battery on my camera decided to die at short notice at this point too, so I'm counting on Mayla (Brazilian girl I shared a room with in Rotorua) to email me some of her photos.

We left there about midday and it then took another 5 hours to get to Taupo once we had stopped at the trapeze rope place, and the honey place, and the bungy jump place and the sky dive place. None of which I wanted to stop at and was seriously regretting my choice of transportation at this point!!

I had only booked one night in Taupo and as we didnt get there until after 5pm and we were leaving at 8am, that didn't really give me any time to see any of it. But it was Friday night and bustling and I had a great night out with Mayla, and two other girls that I had met on the bus (Rosan from Holland, and Sarah from US). We went to a bar with the bus driver and when we asked the barmaid to take a photo of us, she then proceeded to bring down the collection of hats that was behind the bar for us all to wear. We found this hilarious, probably due to the drink, and proceeded to try on every possible combination of hats with various poses. I had also decided to wear my Brazil T-shirt in Mayla's honour (and actually it was about the only item of clothing I had that was lcean!) and she was thrilled. We then headed on elsewhere, and suddenly it was 4am and I walked the 50 ft back to my hostel before being rudely awakened by the alarm clock for the onward bus journey.