Well looks like our good weather run has slipped away...very cloudy and cool today. I got caught up on laundry then we headed to a little town south of here to look at an art exhibition which was very good...great paintings and wood carving...outside of our price range though! We went back to Taupo and looked at some lovely artsy shops....one where they make everything beautiful from wood...then went to a 45 minute 4D movie....it was so great...we went white water rafting, kayaking down rapids, skydiving over lake Taupo and took the jet boat over rapids and down and up waterfalls. We got wind blown at us, our chairs rocked and rolled and we got splashed every time they did....I was totally soaked by end of it! What a hoot! So recommend it...it was really like you were there doing it! Oh yes we also played golf today....or rather tried to win $10,000 by hitting a hole in one over water onto raft....Fred hit the raft but that was the closest we came to with 18 attempts! Had lunch on lakefront and strolled along lake looking at boats before coming home for a swim in the pool and get ready for our Mauri experience tonight! Oh yes and the weather cleared to a perfect afternoon! We got picked up at 5pm and taken to a Maori experience evening at Wairakei. It was a place where the Maori tribe used to live and use natural thermal terraces for health. Along came hydro and tore it all down. The Maori's have reclaimed the area and the hydro helped them rebuild their terraces and allowed them to use the natural hot springs. They built terraces from rock and straw and the natural hot springs flows over them leaving silica terraces...just beautiful...the water is boiling hot and steam coming from them is something to see! They then cool the water down over rocks and have 3 hot pools at varying degrees of heat, 37, 35 and 32 degrees for public bathing! We got introduced to the Maori culture learning quite a lot including the meaning behind the famous New Zealand all blacks song..the HAKA..which they stole from the mauri's...they danced for us after serving their traditional hungi underground steamed roasts...yummy!