From Taupo we headed to Rotorua. It has to be THE smelliest place in the world. The sulphur makes the whole place stink like rotten eggs and led to us dramatically lying on our beds and shutting all the windows and doors while claiming it was making us ill. We have decided they really should try and use some industrial strength air freshener to deal with this problem.

The first afternoon Sian, Gee and Emily went white water rafting while me and Em seemed to waste a whole afternoon reading and sleeping.

After a skydive on the Saturday, I was planning a relatively chilled day on Sunday. But somehow gee, Joel and I ended up signing up for grade 5 white water rafting again after declaring 'it's only 30 quid…screw it' which has become a bit of a habit in NZ. Unfortunately all these 30 pounds seem to be adding up. But this really was money well spent. After arriving at 'Hell's Gate' (great…) we were put in our lovely waterproof gear and given our briefing. We decided since we had all skydived this would be ok. But Jerz, our leader, merely laughed and told us that skydiving was nothing 'you aren't attached to anyone when you fall down a 7m waterfall and are held under the water guys'. We got told if we fell out under the waterfall to curl up unto a ball and eventually we would pop up….somewhere. The look of fear on our faces prompted Jerz to literally push us onto the raft before we could think about it. He kept on changing from military drill sergeant yelling Paddle! Go Go Go Go! To mocking the English about everything, but namely rugby. I cleverly pointed out that I was Welsh to which he tried to push me out. That was not a good plan. Gee and I giggled the whole way round as were in a boat full of guys going full pace, treating it like some kind of Oxbridge rowing race and we had not clue what was going on. Joel pretended not to knows us. At certain points, Jerz, who is of Maori descent stopped us to say maori prayers and explain stuff about their culture which was a nice insight but as soon as we started to get interested and think 'awh isn't that lovely' we were shoved back onto the river and he started yelling hardcore chants as we plummeted down the 7m waterfall. It's the highest commercial you can raft and very scary. The whole raft filled with water and I was convinced I was underwater and dying and all sorts but somehow we popped up. After, our new best mate Jerz said we could go for a swim so we jumped out for a nice little paddle. Then we were yelled at to hang on and we went down another waterfall clinging onto the raft which was even scarier. Cheers Jerz. Getting back in was pretty eventful. I got hauled in, then helped in Gee, who I fell on top of..closely followed by Joel falling on all of us. Bit of a mess. The hour was up too quickly and we were soon back in the hostel to see Soph and Em off,with us yelling we did want to see them later and they weren't allowed to run off with some Maori men (Hoyle's newest life plan). SJ

That night however me and Em got all dolled up to go to the Maori cultural experience night we had booked (far more up our streets than flying down rapidsin a dingy). We all climbed on the bus which was to take us to the Maori village which had been re created in Pre European style. It was then that we met our crazy Maori bus driver who said 'Kia Ora' or welcome to us in 54 different languages, pretty impressive. He also seemed to know every national anthem in the worldand had us all singing and messing around. This included him driving round the same roundabout about 10 times while singing 'here we go round the mulberry bush' and jumping out of seats while singing wheels on the bus. After answering the register our bus driver also decided that apparently I had a very soft and posh voice and therefore should sing to the bus. I literally thought I was going to die of embarrassment and was literally forced to sing '10 in the bed' to everyone. After picking a Chief for our tribe (which consisted of everyone on the bus)we arrived in the village very excited. The night started with a traditional welcome that consisted of the tribe from the village performing a ritual of fighting moves and singing. We were seriously worried we were going to laugh but the weird eye rollingand tongue movements they did kept us completely transfixed. After that we went to walk around the village where there were re enactions of different elements of Maori life. We then headed for the best bit of the night, the meal. It was immense. Beef, chicken, lamb, fish had all been cooked in the traditional underground ovens anad we completely stuffed ourselves. To finish the night we had a show of music and dance which all finished with a haka which left us completely impressed.

The next day we all decided to go luging. We headed out to catch the bus to the gondola which would take us up the mountain. We didn't really know where we were going however and simply got on the bus and said 'luging please'. Thankfully the bus driver was very helpful and we managed to get there without being lost. When we got there we all grabbed a lovely red helmet and each climbed into a luge each slightly scared of what was to come. We headed down to the 'scenic route' and it was all going well until we realized we had somehow lost Emily. We pulled up to wait for her in a little lay by and after quite a lot of people and time had passed some guy called out to us that she was coming so off we set again. When we got to the bottom we realized however she really was a long way behind and when she eventually appeared she was a hilarious sight coming round the corner pulling on the brake so hard she was barely moving! We then had to jump back on the gondola to get to the top of the track again. We loved it so much we excitedly did the intermediate and advanced tracks (Ems stuck to the scenic but was perfectly happy) screaming the whole way down. We had to physically restrain ourselves from buying more goes and have all decided that we would like a luging track in our back gardens.

After loving luging so much we were in such good moods we decided to head to the bar for a glass of wine each. For what happened next we all totally blame Emily who when the barman asked what she wanted she replied a bottle of wine instead of the decided upon glass. Us not wanting to be rude obviously had to follow suit and somehow at around 10 o clock we all appeared to be wearing togas (these were provided by the bar staff who said it was no problem we hadn't come in costume they could sort that!) and dancing around a tiny dance floordrinking free cocktails we had been given. What a mess. Some of us naturally decided to keep our clothes on under our togas. Others did not. It started when Emily appeared after going to the toilet minus her top and although we could see her bra we thought this was acceptable. It was when the shorts disappeared that me and Sian ran across the bar to cover her and save her modesty. Her very big flesh coloured pants (purchased from Farmers which is a Kiwi BHS due to a pants shortage) were on show for all to see. She simply said she knew that they were and "I like it", so we left her to it. Good times. SH xx