Yo!! This is by far going to be the longest blog i write and i know im not really looking forward to sitting here for 2hrs but hey i want to let you know how much fun im having don't i! ;)

So what a great first morning it was with Kates alarm not going off so we woke up just 10 mins before the bus was due to leave. Was rather funny watching kate panic and get dressed as quickly as possible!! We still made the bus... just! This first day was a bit of a wash out with the weather being terrible, basically we met a few people on the bus and our bus driver Dallas (yes that is he's real name! haha!) and just spent the day chatting and stuff followed by a couple of walks! The overnight stop was Mercury Bay, where we stayed in a nice little place where the owner cooked us dinner and the beds were actually comfy. Pretty tame day really but a nice weay to settle us into the onslaught of the next 11 days up to now!!

Day 2 on the big green kiwi bus was travelling to Rotorua, the journeys here arent too long and we have quiet a few stops which is good compared to the serious travelling we did in Oz. The views whilst on the coach are pretty amazing too and we drove though lots of places where Lord of the Rings was filmed, for all you fans out there! Once at Rotoruawe had a choice as to whether we would like to go to a real Maori cultural experience which included dinner and a concert and to learn a bit about their culture. I decided to do it as did most of the others except Kate. So that night we were getting picked up and taken to the show. I had such a laugh, we got taken to a village whilst on the way learning some of their words and then the warriors came out and danced (well it was sort of a scare tactic that they used in the old days to scare off other warriors)... it was bloody scary but me and a few of the lads kept laughing. These guys were huge, just like the NZ rugby team and terrifying but we were like school kids laughing. The night went on and we saw some of the dances and then had a feast and i mean a feast me and one of the lads Mark ate far too much. The meal is called Hangi which is actually cooked in the ground on hot rocks. We had everything you could dream of all kinds of meats etc...!! On the way back we were learning songs and the nutty bus driver lady was getting us all up to sing! We got back to the hostel and had a few cheap drinks and a dance with my new found friends from the bus!

Next day we travelled to Waitomo, this was one of the best days so far as we done Black water Rafting!! Basically caving and getting into rubber rings andfloating in the water and seeing all the glow worms. It was hilarious watching us all get into our suits and wearing stooopid helmets!! Kate especially looking like she just jumped off the special bus! lol. Getting into the caves was good fun and then travelling through with all the lights off getting groped by randoms in our group is always a laugh!! Was freeeezing afterwards though! We also done something called luging, which is basically sitting on a tiny go-cart and race down some winding hill tracks to the bottom... you actually get up to speed of 30kmh. Obviously races were starting straight away with Mark even falling out... and a few near crashes!! Once at the bottom you had to get in a chair lift to the top and had lots of fun shaking it and scaring the hell out of Spinksy but hey you gotta do it!!

Back on the bus again and off to Taupo for our next stop over with a day off from sitting on the bus! Woo!! We saw a few things on our travel down including Mount Doom and a few water falls. But the main activity of this day was........ SKY DIVING!!!! Jeesus i couldnt wait for this and god did it live up to expectations!! To be honest and i mean it i wasnt really that scared at all at the end of the day they do loads of jumps a day and you are straped to someone!! What could go wrong? All was good untill we got there and i found out 2 people died last year? lol. Too fat and fell out the harness! So i quickly weighed myself and luckly i was a fair bit under the 100 kg limit! Kate was seriously cacking her pants, so i was trying to reassure her but dont think it was working!! Plus she was up first doing the 12000ft jump!! So now that she was going up wearing her big red boiler sui t there was no way i could back out! Me, Paul and Ryan done it together cause you can only fit 3 jumpers into a plane and boy did we have a long wait to get the nerves going! Kate had been and done hers and as i had said to Paul "i bet she says she loved it!" and what were the first words out of her mouth once she landed safely... "that was awsome!". So me next and i meet the guy who im gonna be straped to, he seemed pretty cool.. but whilst the others were getting told what to do like keeping the head back holding on and then when tapped they could open their arms, i was told nothing!!! lol. And he nearly forgot to tighten a strap rememebering just before getting into this midget plane!? On the way up it seemed to take forever!! Once we hit 12000 ft aswell we had to take oxygen so the 3 of us looked like a right bunch of terrified weirdos, haha! I was 2nd out the plane after Paul and i cannot explain the feeling of being on the edge of a plane at 15000ft, looking down at the earth knowing that in about 3 seconds you're going to be thrown out of it! All i know was it was the most exilirating, terrifying, exciting thing ever!! Even writing about it sends shivers down my spine. Those first few seconds tumbling out and free falling are a blur then i had around a minute of freefall... so i started pulling outall the moves - Superman, Swimming, muscle man etc!! haha!! I loved it! Even if my big cheeks were flapping around! lol. Then i had a few minute once the paracute had been opened to admire the view where you sould see for miles and just realise what i had just done!! Once down i had shaky legs a bit but we all loved it!! Just so you know aswell it was all filmed so ill try and get that online if not you can see it when im back and have a good giggle!! That night everyone was buzzing so we went out for drinks, thinking we would just get drunk and be in bed by around 1ish, but Dallas had other ideas and it got rather messy! Put it this way around 20 of us got into cabs and headed to the hot pools, which are natural rock pools which have really hot water, and before i knew it there was 20 naked and half naked people swimming around!! It was a rather eventful night and theres some very incriminating photos which i hope will never be seen! I also managed to slide down some rocks as did a few people and now have nice big grazes on my bum! Ouch!

The next day was a day off so we chilled out round the lake and there was a few embarressed people... not me obviously as Kate says now i seem to have no shame, haha... this is in a good way by the way!!

Day 6 or 7 now and we leave Taupo to head to River Valley, this was quite a nice jounrey and we have got quite a good group on the bus now, a few blokes from Bournemouth, a guy from Hull, 2 irish girls, a german girl, a dutch/german guy and a few others. River Valley is basically in the middle of nowhere i t literally has a river and a valley, but it is the most beautiful location. So that afternoon we played a bit of volleyball, my experience from cancun and panama city came in well and then we got stuck into the cheap 6 dollar jugs of beer! Drinking games followed and before you knew it we were trying to climb round a table without touching the floor!! This is Not easy and no one actually did it... all we came away with was some seriously bruised arms and legs to go with my already grazed buttocks! You can see a pattern emerging here eh? and you'll soon find out what happens. Which is where ill leave it and start a new blog as the next one heads us off to the south island...