So my final week began with an awesome weekend in Rotorua

This city is known for its thermal activity with spas, active geysers and hot spring pools. Unfortunately its also known for the sulphur smell (or more stench!) in the air which makes it smell like rotten eggs most of the time but you get used to it after a while.......

After a 3 hour drive from Auckland through some amazing landscapes (Middle Earth comes to mind....) and finding a motel for the night we drove to Huka Falls which is a place full of beauty and tranquility. With its clear ice blue rushing water, i've never seen anything like it before and got some awesome pictures. After spending about an hour there we drove back to Rotorua to the Skyline attraction. After a lovely sky cable ride up the mountain we had lunch at the restaurant and sat outside to be greeted with some mind-blowing views of Lake Rotorua which made lunch even more enjoyable. After lunch we raced each other on the Skyline Luge which was well good fun it was the first time i'd had a go at this, you sit in a go kart kind of thing and race downhill with winding bends, jumps and steep drops to make you go faster.........the little kid in me definitely came out lol. We had paid for 3 goes but I was gutted to lose all 3 times, my cousin who won 3 times obviously wasnt!! I'll have you next time Robin!!

After a couple of celebratory (in Robins case) and consoling (in my case) beers, we made our way back down and headed back to the motel. We decided to have some dinner at the local Maccy D's and headed into town to experience the Rotorua nightlife. The town was like a ghost town and considering it was a Saturday night we thought something had happened and everyone decided to stay away from town!! but we were lucky to find a bar called The Pig and Whistle. This was a cool place with a great live band and a DJ in between the live bands sets and it seemed the whole town were in this place which was great to see. We had a boogie and after the band finished we called it a night and headed to bed.

On Sunday we had breakfast and then walked around a park to view the thermal 'pits' where I saw bubbling and steaming mud pools. I have no idea how these were/are created, neither did my cousin so I'm going to google this and find out how. We left Rotorua late morning for the 3 hour drive back.

Monday was spent at home washing clothes and just generally relaxing which was nice to do after a busy weekend

Tuesday I waved goodbye to my cousin and his family to spend my last few days in NZ with another cousin.

On Wednesday we went to Rainbows End. This is NZ's premier theme park, we had a most brilliant day. The rides were good fun, the weather was great which made the day even more enjoyable If you visit Auckland and you enjoy rollercoasters and thrils n spills then this is the place for you.

On my last full day in Auckland we went to the North Shore area. We ventured up Mount Victoria to see some great views of Auckland, as the weather was good this made the views even more breathtaking!! We then visited the North Summit afterwards. This is another place for great views but also there were disused cannons and underground bunkers to go through. which were very interesting.

So today is my last day in New Zealand. I have really enjoyed my time here, seeing family (some I haven't seen in 19 years!!) and meeting up with an old school friend too. Visiting all the places I have been to really gave me the impression this is a beautiful country and definitely reccommend visiting here if you can. Its a shame I didnt manage to make it to the South Island but I intend to come back and when I do I will venture down South then

Thanks for having me New Zealand, I'll definitely be back!!

Next stop...........FIJI

Until next time peeps
Much love
Rob
xxxxxx