Mon 6th Feb 2012

(above is a pic of a theramal pool)

We got up and checked put of the hostel before heading towards a mauri village. It was their bank holiday in Roturoa and so as a special offer they were just asking for gold donations ie $1, saving us about $20+ going to a different 1! When we got there the woman on the desk gave us our sticker and said if anyone asked we were to say we were locals as it meant we could go in for free! Brill. My good looks do the trick every now and then, or, maybe it was lou's...

We had a guided tour around the village which was very interesting, seeing how they use the earth for warmth. they have holes in the ground where they put food in big gastronomes with foil over to cook stuff and they make net bags and put foods like sweetcorn in the pools to cook. They said contrary (??) to what people think, they are up with modern day technology using utensils and such like, its just why pay for gas or electricty when they get it for free from the ground. The only draw back i saw was that there were no showers and it takes about 2hours to run a bath! They have their own style 'cookers' in each house/hut but often use the communal ones as it's a good place to talk to everyone. Lou and i tried some food cooked in the pool. We had sweetcorn, mussels, sweet potato and a sausage with bread. We left the mussels as they were closed and i didnt think we should eat them. I was suprised as i thort the food would have been abit more tainted wiyh the smell but it wasnt...only afterwards did the smell repeat and it was like for like!!! We set off for Taupo. I was looking forward to getting here as we had planned to have a few nights here meaning we didnt have to get up early and check out like we have done the last few days. Hunterville (were the farm is, to aukland then to taupo is a fair distance when your doing things as well! When we arrived i didnt feel so well and went straight to bed and stayed there until morning pretty much and lou had tea and chatted to people.