Last day in Rotorua and Julie's hopes of a dolphin watching cruise in nearby Tauranga were dashed by the cyclone. Still, we made the best of it and got another combo ticket. First we had a deluxe lunch cruise on the Lakeland Queen - an old-fashioned paddle steamer type boat - on the calm waters of Lake Rotorua. All was well until, we were in turn feasted upon by biting, flying ants near the end of the trip. The second half of the ticket took us 10km out of the ...

Rotorua is definitely a place best seen by car. We made an early start to drive the 27km to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland to see its star attraction - the Lady Knox Geyser. Every day at 10:15, the park ranger adds detergent to the steaming hole in the ground to trigger a column of water up to 20m. We sat on the front row and got more than a little wet. We then walked round the rest of the attraction: the artists palette - a colourful plateau caused by minerals...

Day 2 in Rotorua started with a desperate attempt to hire a car. We were one click away from reserving one last night when the Internet in the room ran out and we were unable to reserve this morning for the same day. So we walked into town and wandered around until we found the Europcar depot and actually got a much better deal than we would have online  With our new found freedom, we drove to Whakarewarewa - a living Maori village that shows around tourists...

Not much to blog about today. We checked out, got the £5 Nakedbus to Rotorua and checked into our motel on the edge of the CBD. There's a hot mineral spa and a gas BBQ at the motel, so we stocked up on some minted lamb sausages, salad and rolls and had a relaxing first night in Rotorua.

Have no fear gentle readers. Julie is NOT about to be eaten by a giant shark that looks like it's already eaten a bus. We went to Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium and Antarctic Adventure and that was the excellently pimped shuttle bus. The attraction was also very good - being able to see the penguins up close from a "snow cat" set it apart from other aquariums we've been to lately. However, we left the building in an absolute downpour, which hadn't improved much by th...