The day started a little before 8 o'clock when I woke up. I checked my phone for the time and saw a text from Lizzie confirming Jack had a place at Coten End School, a flurry of texts to Rachel later confirmed that Alex also has a place there.

Breakfast was cereal, croissant etc and we found ourselves on the road at about 9:15 or so and drove the 30km to Wai-o-tapu for the thermal park. We arrived just before Lady Knox geyser would have entered eruption but decided to get ahead of the rest of the tourists in the main area given we saw geysers yesterday. We did the whole 3km walk plus all the off-shoots and a reasonable proportion of it with babies on heads. This is very hard work ! The thermal pools were amazing and the instability of the ground is pretty scary. We walked through craters which have just appeared and through pools of varying shades through yellow, green, blue and red. The primrose terraces are pretty impressive to see being built up of so many layers of mineral deposits. There were also some pretty amazing views across the park. We spent about 2 hours walking round before we left to go back to the car park. When we got there we packed up a bag and walked a short distance to the picnic area for lunch. The shade was lovely and most welcome. Today was another case of cold morning burning off towards lunch time.

We then continued our drive to Taupo only stopping to look at Huka Falls which are incredible, they are not particulary high but the length of the rapids at the top and the sheer volume of water coming through is awe inspiring. We started at the top view point before coming down to the main area where we walked along the length of the falls. The girls were fascinated by the falls in part but actually enjoyed playing on the rocks in the path. We then drove the short distance to town and after a visit to the tourist information centre found a campsite. The view of the lake coming into the town was amazing and we shall have to explore tomorrow as today we are too tired to do it.

The campsite is very well equipped and also the most expensive we have stayed in. The girls have bounced on the bouncy pillow, caused chaos in the play park and swum in the pool.

We needed an afternoon to play ! In other news the police have called to let us know that they cannot locate the thief, it was a young person travelling on a Kiwi Experience bus.