Now I dont know about you but there is something quite unsettling about thermal areas. Quite randomly you will see a steaming crater in the ground, or come across a stream that will literally melt the skin off your feet if you were so careless as to pop a toe in. We stayed on a campsite right by the lake called Cosy Cottage, occasionally catching a faint whiff of egg as you do in thermal areas. Mmm. Disguises Stephens bottom burps though.

We went to Agrodome and saw a sheep show (much more entertaining than it sounds) and then went zorbing, which involves you getting into something like a 15ft beachball half filled with water and rolling down a hill. Bizarre but pratically compulsory in Rotorua. Stephen was dizzy for an hour afterwards, lightweight!

Then we headed off to the Kiwi Experience, a breeding centre for the national icon, and saw a newly hatched chick and a few eggs in an incubator. The eggs are 25% of the size of the adult bird, apparantly equivalent to a human giving birth to a 4 year old. Ouch. I really enjoyed learning about this endangered little bird.

One of the highlights though was going to a Maori concert and Hangi, we went to the Tamaki tribe and had a fantastic night, they did lots of dancing, canoeing and we saw them do the Haka. We were sat in the front row and I can tell you it was a frightening experience. Forget what the All Blacks do, it looks like ballet in comparison. The audience was so moved that at the end no-one clapped, we just sat there in stunned silence. Fantastic. We were then treated to a delicious meal that was cooked in a Hangi (a pit in the ground which uses the thermal heat to cook the food).

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad- 35 years on 26th Feb.