Sunday 30th July - Rotorua, what can you say about the place....it stinks!! No it actually does! it's a massive thermal/volcanic area and you can't miss the smell of the sulphur, so the the feeling of having rotten eggs stuck up your nose is something to get used to! Arrived last night so didn't really do anything much except a bit of food shopping and talked to a pair of english lads in the kitchen about what's to do around Rotorua. They seemed nice enough but according to them there's absolutely nothing to do in New Zealand apart from all the adrenaline stuff like bungees and they don't know how the locals survive!?! Can't say we agreed but we bit our tongues! So Sunday was a day of Kiwi's and Maori's. In the morning we went to a kiwi breeding centre, it was so interesting. They take kiwi eggs out of the wild and hatch them until they're big enough to defend themselves then release them, with a microchip to track them, back to where they were from originally. They didn't have many egg's in as it's not the season but we got to see 3 kiwi's. They keep them in enclosurers inside and you can see them with no glass between them or anything. They are the strangest looking birds you can imagine but so cute! Yet again laura had to be stopped from 'borrowing' one to take home! (sorry no pics,they're nocturnal and don't like camera flashes!) Driving back to the campsite we stopped at a park in the centre of the town. It's full of steaming mud pools and holes in the ground with big plumes of smoke coming out of them! Apparently they weren't here a few years ago then there was a mini eruption and these appeared! Very cool but very smelly! We were then picked up for a maori evening at a village based close to another thermal area full of geysers! We looked around the geysers first(see a pic of the prince of whales one) and then went onto the maori evening. The village is a real village which acts as a cultural school for maori carvings. Maori's serve as an apprentice for 3 years under a master carver learning traditional carvings. There was a group of us there for the evening from lots of different countries and we had to pick a chief to represent the group to ask for entry to the village and guess what.......! I now only respond to Chief Paul! To be honest it was a little scary because it was so formal! I had to face a maori warrior and keep eye contact with him while he did a traditional dance to intimidate, kind of like a haka but not so war like, and then accept a leaf off him to show we were there in peace! Then we went inside the meeting hall where traditional speeches where made in Maori and then I had to reply with one thanking them for their welcome! No I didn't go on too long or anything!! Then I got to do a hongi, the traditional greeting where you press noses twice, not to be mistaken with a hangi, which is traditional maori food baked in the ground that we were served later! After all the formalities there were lots of dances and songs performed along with demonstrations of weapons. The highlight of the evening was being taught body parts in maori to then all sing the hoke koke!! The meal after was really good too, went back to the van having had a really good night. And don't forget it's Chief Paul from now on!!