Today we smelled enough sulphurous gases to last a lifetime (actually not nearly as bad as I thought it might be!) We went to Wai-Otapu, the geothermal wonderland with mesmerising boiling mud pools, steam fumaroles, boiling water in strangely coloured lakes and deadly craters. It really was "awesome". Headed off to Lake Tuapo via the Aratiatia dam, which is opened at various times throughout the day to release enormous volumes of water into New Zealand'...

First stop on our journey southwards towards Rotorua was at the Kauri museum in Matakahoe. Considering that we had only seen Kauri trees for the first time last night, we had a lot to learn! The museum was very well done and had lots of different areas to walk through. There was a large display of Kauri Gum, which looks like amber, and was carved into all sorts of amazing things by the 'gum diggers'. Some of the lumps of gum they found whilst digging weighed over...