So our journey begins, first stop panoramic views of Auckland, we could see for miles. In my left eye I could see high rise buildings with the height of the Sky Tower, towering over the city and with the right I could see miles and miles of green land, mountains and trees. We took our touristy pictures with our new image, a symmetrical hair and pins in my neck! We jumped back onto the bus and headed to Hobbitin, where they kept the set of the Shire ready to film the last in the series of Lord of the Rings 'The Hobbit'. We didn't go on the tour as I couldn't even sit through the first film let alone a tour about it. Only one person stayed for the tour so I don't think it was a big loss! Our next stop was to see where the most popular drink in New Zealand was brewed , L&P lemon spring water. We later tried the drink and I wasn't that keen but Becki loved it. Our next stop was a action theme park, where you could Jet Boat , Bungy, Air Blower Sky Diver thing and the Swoop Swing. We didn't do any of the activities as they were all really over priced and really short lived, but we did try and feed the Ostrich but we freak everytime because they could peek your eyes out!!

We soon arrived in Rotorua where we booked onto a Maori evening culture tour. We were picked up from our hostel by this crazy Maori descendent who was big loud and black! He had a huge personality, he remembered all our names and countries and started telling us the story of the Maori to start the tour off. We all interacted on the bus played some games and started getting really into the evening. We arrived in the forest where the village was set up and we watched the opening ceremony. Everyone got involved, staff, other tourists and us, we all played along. The ceremony started with a dance and the Maori people got into their positions and did a strong worrier dance checking to make sure we were friends and not enemies then invited us into their village. When we entered we were split into groups and slowly walked around the forest looking at different styles of homes, cooking equipment and war tools. Our group was lead by two women who explained and showed us a few fighting games children were taught to practice their skills, even the women were taught how to fight. Becki and I were chosen from the crowd to demonstrate a game. We had to stand in a circle with one hand behind our back and one hand on a tall stick, they then shouted left or right in Moari and we had to switch direction leaving our stick in our orginal position and catching the stick in the direction you were travelling in before it hit the ground. You were out if your stick hit the grown and the game got harder by moving the circle further out.

We watched a song and dance performance by the group of Moari performers explaining their culture, love,life and war. We then went to a massive food hall where we had a feast of fish, lamb, chicken and loads of cakes, it was amazing our first all you can eat and we ate! 3 portions of Lamb and 2 helpings of desert. Later the female explained how they cooked the tender soft lamb, all lamb roast must be cooked this way from now on!! We then got back on the bus where our crazy bus driver greeted us with a song and then went on to sing a different song for each of our countries. When we got off the bus we had to say goodbye the Moari way and touch noises with the driver twice and shake hands. We arrived back at the hostel and made our decision to stay a few more days and move to a cheaper hostel.

Our new hostel was really cute, it was a holiday park which had dorms and really friendly staff. Due to bus timings we had to stay for three nights so we went shopping brought loads of food and then went walking. For the next three days we walked on average about five hours a day. Walked around a massive park full of themeral pools heated from the lava underground. Some of the pools reached 215 degrees but others were cool enough for us to sit in. The next day we walked around a large lake for miles and found more thermal pools and geezers. On our last day we went for a nice walk around Red Wood Forest on one of their hikes. The forest was all man made but it was beautiful, trees everywhere, thousands of trails and lots of fresh aired happy people. During our time in Rotorua it was St Patrick's day, when is St Georges day? We need to know to ensure we dont miss out on a good excuse to celebrate We decided to go out to celebrate that night but we ended up being disappointed as the Irish bar shut at 10.30pm then the night club shut at 1pm and we arrived into town about 10.45....! although all we did in Rotorua was cook and walk we had a really nice chilled out time which allowed us time to plan our next few moves around the north island.