We left Maketu to go to Rotorua and a group of us (Sarah, Ryan, both Stefan's, Devon and I) decided to explore the town rather than do one of the activities.We headed to a café to have a big breakfast and then we headed down to the water and walked around to see the geothermal activity spots.One place said that the water was 112 degrees and it was steaming.You keep getting wafts of egg smell, which was not pleasant!We were supposed to meet back at the bus at 12:...

We headed towards the town of Waitomo to do some caving and see some glow worms. I'd selected to do the Tumo Tumo Tubing which the girls and Stefan, Ryan and Devon were also doing as well as a Danish couple called Morton and Mia.We went to the office at 10am and got taken to an area to get into all the gear.We put wetsuits and jackets on and wellies and a hard hat and then we walked to the entrance of the cave.As we were approaching them I suddenly remembered tha...

In the morning we headed over to the west coast to go to Raglan which is a world famous surf area.We stopped at Paeroa which is where New Zealand's famous fizzy drink L&P originated and stopped at the café for a cuppa then Sarah and I took photos of each other in front of the giant bottle sign.We then merged buses so that there were 37 of us all one bus and I sat at the back of the bus with the boys.We then stopped at Hamilton (NZ's fourth largest city - whi...

I waited outside the hostel at 7:30am ready to be collected by the Stray bus.I was the only one to get on the minibus so I sat near the back and joked about being the only one on the trip but Daisy the driver reassured me that there were other people to be collected.About 8 people got on from the YHA international hostel and a guy called Stefan came and sat across the aisle from me and he seemed friendly.Everyone else seemed very quiet so I was a bit worried abou...

After my epic sleep I decided to head to Auckland Museum which I'd heard was a must do.The museum is located in a really large and pretty park so I walked through past the winter gardens and duck pond on the way.The museum has three floors and there's an exhibition about the All Blacks which was really interesting as they had a film showing the haka.They have a lot of Maori art and displays about volcanoes and the world wards.The volcano section was really good a...