February 13:

This morning we headed towards Rotorua, with a few stops along the way. The first of which sounded almost too impressive to be true. A geyser that erupts at 10.15am sharp called 'Lady Knox'. It was too impressive to be true. I think near 1,000 people turned up along with the 4 of us to see this amazing site, but all left disappointed. The eruption is caused by an employee of the park pouring soap in! An absolute con, bubbles pour out of a natural wonder for God's sake. Within 5 minutes everyone had left!
We checked out the mud pools & other attractions there, which were far more impressive.
We then steamed along SH5 to Rotorua, firstly to the info site to see what we could book. This place is known for it's adventure activities.
After a discussion over breakfast we booked up to do sprint car racing, monster trucking, gondola, sky swing, luge, zorbing & white water rafting! Not the cheapest day we've had to date, but what we did was definitely worth every penny.
First off was the monster trucking. We were driven around a crazy track in a 3.8 V8 4WS beast. It defied logic in the way it handled & it's weight balance. A genius piece of equipment & a great driver.
Then the sprint car racing! It was so much fun, Ed & I were driving, with the girls as passengers. It had so much power you could virtually drift the whole way round. Awesome fun & as always me & Ed were competitive. We checked out a blueberry winery afterwards but it wasn't any good, so we raced down to get on the Gondola, sky swing & luge before they closed.
The sky swing was a 3 seater swing that swnag at 150kph over the edge of a cliff that overlooks the city. Really cool but just doesn't hit home like it should after all the crazy stuff we've been doing lately! Then we did the luge, an old favourite of ours from Queenstown. The tracks were way better here & much more dangerous. Carly & Sara were driving on 2 wheels most of the time!

It's been a busy day today & white water rafting & zorbing tomorrow. We headed off separate ways to Ed & Sara, as we are looking to bring our flights forward. Should be seeing them tomorrow afternoon for zorbing & maybe to do a Moari Culture Evening. It is Valentine's Day though, so we will see. Not exactly romantic!!!

February 14th

So we were up really early for the white water rafting. When we got there it was pretty chilly and we weren't looking forward to being wet and in the cold. The guys told us the water was 24 degrees so that cheered us up. After a short drive to the river we got put into boats, we ended up with 3 other english people so our raft was officially Team England. We set off and our guide Nick started to tell us a bit about how to paddle, when and how to hold on and what to do when you go down a waterfall. It was all pretty straight forward so we got going. Pretty much straight away we had a 1m waterfall that was pretty awesome a few rapids and then the 2 and a half metre waterfall. The waterfalls were so much fun and i had it pretty cushty in the back as i could spread out. Matt was at the front and he had to set the rhythm for paddling.
After a few more rapids we came to the 7 metre waterfall. We were the 3rd raft to go down it, the first one flipped out so we had to wait quite a while for everyone to get back in the boat. Then it was our go and we managed not too flip but literally went all the way under the waterfall, you will have to check out the pictures when we put them on, one minute the raft is there and the next minute it just disappears.
After this we got out, the water was so warm and we swam down a few rapids. A guy on our boat properly smashed his knee on a rock which looked pretty nasty. Before we knew it it was back in the boat and it was all over. We had such a good time. All of the guys that work there made it such a laugh and everyone on our raft was lovely.
We then shot straight off to do the Zorbing. The Zorbing was hilarious, you can usually do it 2 ways either strapped in or with water so you just slide around. Due to high winds they weren't doing the one where they strap you in, so we just did the wet one and decided to go in together. It was the funniest 1minute of my life. We both decided we were going to try and run all the way down so we started off doing pretty well, then cause i had socks on i just flipped up and slid backwards taking out Matts legs, he landed on my head - which hurt alot. We were then both sliding around, Matt managed to elbow me in the back and kick me in the leg. I think he was the only one not injured after it. We were in hysterics all the way down as you are just rolling all over each other.
I did wake up this morning pretty sore with a bruise on my back and leg - was so worth it though. In the end we decided not to do a Maori thing as they were so touristy and just looked a bit cheesy.
We headed for Whakatane which is on the North Coast. We got there later afternoon and jumped in the I-site before it shut. We wanted to find out all of the ways you can see White Island (an active volcano 50km north of Whakatane). We then checked into a campsite.
There are 3 ways you can do it, by boat when you get off and walk around it, scuba dive it or get a helicopter ride and land. As neither of us are that interested in Volcanos we wanted to Scuba Dive. We rang the guy but it turned out it was $300 each. That is a lot of money just to scuba dive, so we decided not to as there is alot more stuff we would rather do and see. We also looked at the boat but that was still quite a lot and the helicopter was over $400 each. We had a lovely Valentines everning as there was a live Jazz band playing in the park for a couple of hours so we sat down and watched them as the sunset,before headingback for some lovely dinner.

February 15th

We set off for Tauranga, stopping at the way on a few fruit places. There were so many nice beaches on the way down so we stopped off at quite a few to check them out and eat some lunch which we had cooked the night before.
When we got to Tauranga it was midday and pretty hot so we headed straight to Mount Maunganui and hit the beach. Matt loved it as they had loads of teams playing beach football so we sunbathed and watched them for a bit. We then went for a walk to the end of Moturiki island just off from the beach, the views were stunning.
We were planning to walk to the top of Mount Maunganui but it was absolutely scorching so we just stayed on the beach. After a few hours we headed back out and further up the Bay of Plenty. We stopped at a few more beaches and ate dinner before getting to Opoutere. It is a tiny place, but we are staying at a really nice and cheap campsite which had private access to the beach.
So just a lovely chilled out day today which we have enjoyed. Going to head up to Hot Water beach tomorrow which is a geothermal beach. So we will let you know what its like.

Take Care and lots of love x x x