Today was miserable! Rain, wind, more rain, more wind! Our journey to River Valley was via a National Park and normally a walk...in that weather?! Nah! A few of us decided to stay on the bus! Wearing flip flops and having no coat also influenced my decision! However, after quite a winding journey we finally arrived at a really nice lodge where we were due to stay for the night. It was really nice and had a spa, sauna, nice lounge area and more importantly the 'O...

Greetings :-) We arrived into Taupo around lunchtime after a brief visit to Hooker Falls. We left some of our group here as they were due to be picked up and head of to do a sky dive. It was an awesome day, quite hot and clear blue skies, but a few of us had already done this so we headed into town to our hostel and planned on spending the afternoon at leisure. On the way to our hostel our driver suggested heading to the Waikato River which has a natural hot st...

The morning we drove to Rotorua was fairly relaxed and we arrived about lunchtime at our hostel. We all headed to the supermarket to buy wine and alcohol for the afternoon, looked around a few shops and headed back for a lazy afternoon whilst some of the boys went luging... I actually watched a film with a bottle of wine, Hannah got absolutely wasted at the pool and was hammered when we left at 6pm to a the Tamaki Maori Village. Again I have done this last tim...

Today we was up early so we could get to hot water beach when the tide was right and sample some hot pools! It's located just above a thermal outlet so it does actually get really hot! It was so cool! When we arrived some people had already dug their own pool and were sat lazing around in it. The sand actually bubbles in parts and is incredibly hot to walk on! You have to get the right area otherwise you would burn your bottom haha! It's pretty awesome! We hung ...

Today I was up fairly early ready for my jouney south to begin! Whilst waiting for the bus I met the rest of the group who I would be travelling with...those who 8days later are now responsible for my liver failure!! haha only kidding guys it's been a blast!! So we met our new bus driver-Rich lol and headed up to the top of Mt Eden which is one of 70 dormant volcanoes in this area. It also had amazing views of Auckland city and the harbour. It was really nice bu...