So so sleepy this morning after a long flight, a new time zone and not the best nights sleep in our hostel. Grabbed some food before hopping onto our bus at 7:30am. We're touring with a company called Magic Bus. Basically they have a bunch of different itineraries throughout the country, you pick a pass and then you hop on/off when you like and the pass is good for a year. When you get close to an overnight stop, they tell you the hostels in the area, you sign up on their sheet and they phone it in and book it for you. They also book any activities you want to do so its very very low stress. Our first stop on our tour was a lookout point over Auckland. We did not realize that most of the country sits on either dormant volcanos or faultlines. There are grassy craters all over the city that are actually volcanos. Pretty cool. After the photo stop, we drove south to Waitomo. All the roads are two lanes (no big highways here) and the views are spectacular. Bright green grassy hills covered in sheep. The human to sheep ratio in NZ is 1:12. Our stop in Waitomo was for a tour of the glow worm cave. You walk through a cave and then board a boat that takes you around these passages where you look up and see hundreds of little blue dots lighting up the rocks. The glow worms only live for a few days and you have to be very quiet and not take pictures otherwise their lights will go out.

We finished the day in Rotorua which is a town sitting on thermal hot springs. There are spa pools all over the place. Stayed at Treks Backpackers and had dinner at Fat Dog, a really nice family restaurant with a fire place and lots of character. Would like a place like that in Manhattan Beach. Stopped by a tavern called Pig and Whistle before heading to bed for a much needed night of rest.