It has been a full few days in beautiful Rotorua where we enjoyed several natural beauties as well as some adrenaline rushes! The town is known for seething thermal activity, boiling mud, hissing steam, exploding geysers and natural hot springs. We certainly enjoying these sights at Te Puia along with various demonstrations of the Maori traditionals. Jeff even got onstage to help with a 'haka' (warrior dance)....who can refuse sticking out your tongue?!

Another natural beauty was the very scenic Californian Redwood trees in Whakarewarewa Forest. It reminded us of the 'Avenue of the Giants' in Oregon during our 2010 travels. The walking trails were fantastic (even for my knee) while the boys bumped it up a notch and rented some mountain bikes.....AWESOME trails and Brady's nickname is now 'Flip' as he went over the handlebars once!

For some intense thrills, we ventured up the Skyline gondola (best view of the lake & town) and rode 5 luge rides down over 5km of tracks! Brady couldn't get enough of this until we tried ziplining which was a thril at almost 100km/hr, followed by a 10m backwards freefall! To top the adeventure off, we rode the Skyswing which swung us high in the sky at 150km/hr. We all made it throught the afternoon - at times with dry mouth, shaky legs and deep breathing!

On another note, Lauren & Gran are super busy in Kenya on their distributions but loving their time. We are following the live trip reports on their website at www.scaw.org - Lauren is due to write the next update!