The next day we headed to the Tongariro National Park and we stayed at the alpine Ski Lodge. On the way we stopped in a little town which had a massive selection of pies so I tried a mince and curry one which was really tasty. The weather was so bad so the crossing was actually cancelled. Ok let me explain a bit about the Tongariro crossing seeing as I keep moaning how I cannot do it. Its based in the Tongariro National Park which is a World Heritage area. It w...

Katie, David, Gemma and David were staying as well so we spent the day in Taupo and walked to the visitor centre and to the lake. It was a gorgeous day and we chilled by the lake for a bit which was really gorgeous and you could see the national park off in the distance. We then headed back to the hostel and made some lunch and spent the afternoon chilling in the garden enjoying the gorgeous sunshine. Later on we did a group dinner and made a delicious curry wi...

The next day we went to the Whaka- Whakarewarewa which was not far from Rotorua. A historical Maori village and geothermal village. There me, Katie, David and Sarah Jane went for our designs for tatoos (hopefully) We were a little panicked as we only had an hour and a half and Timmy had not booked us in for it and the guy doing it was not about. Luckily he turned up and we got to speak to him. He asked us about our family trees and information about us on the w...

The next day we were heading to Maketu for our overnight Maori stop. This is set on the east coast in the Bay of Plenty. Home to Maketu's pies and it is named after an ancient kumara (sweet potato) pit in Hawaiki (where the Maori people are supposed to have originated from). On the way down we went via the Waitomo caves and me and 4 others did a spellbound tour for $61 to get and see the glow worms in the caves. Arachnocampa luminosa the proper name for NZ's ve...

On Thursday I hobbled around and got on my bus for 7.45 with all my bags. Even one of the drivers saw me struggling and said come on hobbler and ran off.. Jeez whatever happened to someone helping you when your injured. We went back up to Mount Eden for our first stop and were told how the Stray pass works. From here you could see the Waitemata and Manukau habours. When we got back on the bus we did a speed talking activity where we moved seats and got to meet ...