After spending a lovely morning and early afternoon at Mount Maunganui it was on to Rotorua and to the sulphurous stench of rotting eggs. We had really been looking forward to this part of our trip having read all the blurb about active volcanic areas, mineral spas, mud baths and not forgetting the sheep show! You really didn't need the sign to tell you that you were in Rotorua because your nose soon lets you know where you are! It is unbelievable but the whole t...

This destination had not been on our original agenda however having been disappointed to miss the rugby match at Hamilton we decided to give it another shot and this time it was an Air New Zealand cup match, Bay of Plently vs. Otago. We left Waitomo around lunch time and arrived at the mount in plenty of time to grab a quick ice cream at the waterfront before heading to the campsite. We had our dinner and then put on about 5 layers of clothes before setting off i...

We arrived at waitomo around lunch time and the plan was to stay one night to explore some of the famous waitomo caves and their even more famous glow worms. The area was full of companies which offered various adrenaline fueled trips involving caving, abseiling and rafting though the rivers which run into the caves in small inflatable rubber rings. Being a bit scared of the dark and not great in confined spaces I couldn't think of anything worse than floating th...

If you look up Hamilton in any guide book you will read that it is not a very exciting place to visit and is more a passing through point than a tourist destination. For us it was a must visit as it is where Michael spent a summer playing rugby around 9 years ago. He was keen to go back to his old haunts to see if anything had changed both at the rugby club he played at and the town he lived in for some 6 weeks all those years ago. I having heard all about his tr...

So we are on the move again and today's destination was to be hot water beach. Now when we set off for this journey we knew it was to be one of the longest drives we would have to do and by far the longest to date! I don't think either of us had really thought that if the guide book said 4 hours that they were talking 4 hours by car. Our poor little van had to put in a real shift that day and it took us around 6 hours to get to camp! Michael had done most of the ...