10/03/09

Got up at 7 after freezing my arse off all night because Burns had stoled all the covers and left a gaping hole between us where the freezing air was swarming in a chilling my back. Got up and went outside to wack the gas on so we could boil the kettle. We all had a cup of tea, drained the grey water and got ready in record time to leave for Rotorua, we arived there by 0830 and went to the tourist info to find out what there was to do. We were all pretty excited because the tourist into centre had showers. After a bit of debating we decided to head off to the Agroventure centre. We got there and struggled to pick which activities to do, I wanted to do all of them, but as money is getting a little short I just chose to do the Schweebing and the Swoop.

The girls were first to go Schweebing, Helen had the outside track and Coops the inner. Schweebing is basically a reclining bicycle that runs underneath a monorail. The race was the first to complete 3 laps around the track. Coops spanked Helen and they were both exhausted aferwards. Coops managed to get the UK position 7. Burns and Pat went second, Pat broke the minute barrier by about a second and Burns came in 4 seconds later, they both also looked exhausted. I wasn't really looking forward to it now. When I got on the bloke realised I was going on my own so offered Coops a free go. We were neck and neck for the first lap, but once my foot stopped slipping off the pedal I managed to pull away and came in a second or two ahead. Really good fun, but so nackering, my legs were like jelly when I stepped out of the Schweeb.

The next activity was the Swoop, basically a sleeping bag that you and up 2 two friends lay in and are then dragged up to a height of 43 metres then dropped and swing back down to earth. Helen and Pat went first, Pat had the joy of pulling the cord, Helens face on the way down was priceless, she looked so worried. Rich and I went second, on the way up we were told we had to cross our arms together to stop us crashing heads on the way down. On the way up you are looking straight down at the ground, so you get to see exactly where you're going the whole way. I got to pull the cord beacuse Rich didn't want the pressure. It's almost as good as a bungee but not quite, its just like going on a huge childrens playground swing. We spent about half an hour trying to convince Coops to do it, for a moment we actually thought we'd been successful, but when she saw another couple doing one she instantly changed her mind. Pat and Rich went up for a second go, I'm sure it's just because they wanted to lock their arms together.

We headed back to Rotorua and parked up outside a Pizza Hut. The girls and I went round some huge shop that literally had everything under one roof, from beds and jeans to TV's, books and cereal, craziest shop ever. We wandered around town for a bit while the lads had showers then met back at the van. The girls went for a hair cut, and then we put all our bed sheets in the wash at the local laundromat. The woman in there had a right go at Coops when she was putting the sheets in, she said "Do you want them washed or not?...No no no, you're puttin 'em in all wrong, you gotta fluff 'em up a bit" Coops didn't look impressed and told her she was just putting them there for a bit before acutally putting them in to wash as there were so many. The girls and I then went for showers, the shower was free because some kind bloke had left the door unlocked, it's the first shower I'd had since the campsite we stayed in near the Bay of Islands, it was so good, nice and powerfull. Once I'd finished in the shower I decided I'd have a hair cut, so walked all the way back to the Hair place, on the way I bumped in to the lads so we went back to put the washing in the dryer. I dumped my bag on the floor with my towel, as we were taking the washing out of the machine to put it in the dryer the woman started having a go at us again, she kept telling us to use one of her baskets with wheels on it even though we already had all the sheets in our arms and could just put them all in the dryer. Then once we'd got them in she looked at my bag, pointed to it and said "What's this!...pick it up!...I'll trip over that!" So I picked it up and went to put it on the shelf, she shouted "Use yer head, that shelf's for clean dry sheets!...Put it up there!" What a b****. I was so close to telling her to f*** off!

Once I'd had a hair cut I went back to the showers to rinse my head again then went back to the camper to get ready for the evening. When I got back there everyone was laughing at a huge pair of black nickers that had been found in the wash, Helen knew they weren't hers and actually thought they were Coops' so put them on her pile of washing. They were scarily huge!

We left for the evening to go to a Maori Cultural Experience. This time we had a decent guide. We introduced ourselves to him, I still can't remember his name, I think it began with a K. This guy was brilliant, he stopped off on the way to show us a 'trick' which involved him remembering the names of all 50 of us on the coach! On the way to the Maori village a bloke called John from the bus was elected to be the groups chief. We're all sure that he and his group had already been drinking. When we arrived We walked in to the village and encircled the ceremonial area along with 2 more coaches of people where we witnessed the Maoris perform some very intimidating dancing to the chiefs of each coach. They were very intimidating, their eyes nearly bulged out of their heads, one of them stared was trying to stare me out, and we were under strict instructions not to move a muscle, smile or laugh or we would offend them, so I just had to stare back at him, it was pretty freaky, but very interesting. All was well until they turned it into a sort of pantomine when they began telling the story of how Muskets were introduced to the tribe. The whole thing seemed to go a little downhill and almost comical. After our chiefs had accepted the peace offering placed on the ground we were asked to follow them into the centre of their village where we were allowed to chat to the Maoris and explore their culture. After learning about how they made their carpets and baskets and looking behind one of the hanging rugs to find a load of electrical appliances including a laptop our time was cut short and we were asked to enter the dining hall where we could eat a traditonally cooked Maori meal using their Hangi technique, where they bury the food underground on hot rocks. We entered the dining hall and all took a deep breath as we saw perfectly laid tables with clean plates, fresh water cups and a huge buffet of food on one side. I'm pretty sure none of the food was cooked under the ground, it has to be the most well presented and cooked meal we have had the entire time we have been away. It was a roast dinner buffet with lamb, chicken, all the veg, gravy, fish, pasta and muscles. I tried muscels for the first time, they're definately not my favorite food, rather chewy round the edges and a bit gloopy and fishy. We were allowed to go back for seconds and I was stuffed after another plate full of stuffing. They then served up Pavlova and fruit salad for desert, needless to say I was ready to burst by the end of it, Burns was in a much worse state. We thought we had experience the most un-Maori part of the tour by now, but no, the tour guides pulled out a guitar and started doing requests, soon enough they were up the front of the hall and everyone, which I had now realised consisted of 90% OAP's, were now standing up and singing along. We all exchanged looks among ourselves, Helen and Laura were the first to crack, I caught the eye of a young German couple looking just as perplexed as us and I started laughing next. The whole thing was quite a bemusement, none of us really knew what to make of it, it certainly wasn't the Maori Cultural experience we had expected. At least the two guides did the Haka just before we left. On the way back a group of people from each country were selected to go up to the front of the bus and sing a song from their country, we thought there were no other English on the bus but were saved when an old couple got up and sang. Burns nearly wet himself when he witnessed an elderly woman attempting to use a digital camera, she had the view finder pressed literally into her retina. Our guide came round and recalled all our names again and we finally made it back and got off the OAP party bus. On the way back we all visited the McDonalds toilet before bed then realised they had GlobalGossip internet so made the most of it.

11/03/09

We headed off early around the giant lake to Hells Gate hot springs. We got there at 0825 and the place was still shut, it reaked of rotten eggs outside and I didn't weem to be getting used to it very quickly. The first hot pool was the only one we could paddle in so we sat there and warmed our feet as it was so cold outside. We walked around for about an hour taking shed loads of photos of steam and bubbling mud, it was here that I finally found out how to take widescreen photos on my camera. We got to get very close to an actual volcano, this one was only 2.7 metres high though but we could nearly walk on it. On the way out we saw a mouse that had been crushed, Rich joked about putting it in the Kitchen, a pool of water at 98 degrees, we soon realised he was deadly serious and had to stop him from picking it up.

We then drove over to Rainbow crater for a walk, the guide told us it was a 20 minute walk, we made it there in 10, then a sign said Rainbow Crater lookout 2 minutes, which was acutally visable from where the sign was and was only about a 10 second walk. We then drove off to find some Geyser that was on the map, when we realised that you had to pay to see it we drove past and managed to find a Med bath that we could see for free. It was spitting boiling mud all over the place, and had really cool swirling patterns in it.

We drove back to Rotorua and spent the afternoon making the most of the internet and shops then set off for Raglan at about 4pm. After much driving in the wind we finally arrived. The girls used the public toilets to empty the campervan toilet. We saw loads of signs up all over town telling us that there was no overnight parking or camping in the area so we drove off a little bit out of town and saw a layby on the corner of a cliff top, I managed to turn the van around on the windy road and we headed back to it. We pulled up alongside another camper and had an amazing view of the longest left hand wave break in the southern hemisphere. We looked out the window as the sun set over the sea, then the other camper moved on and we parked up on their flat surface for the night.

During the evening the lights slowly dimmed and soon enough the auxiliary battery was dead and the fridge stopped working.