Hello everyone, my tour of NZ has begun and i have travelling the north island (not covered everything but most places!) We left auckland and headed a bit further north to the bay of Islans and on the way had lunch by the Whangerei falls which was really nice and got to know a few people. When we got to the bay of lslands I went sailing to 2 other people from my tour and we sailed round the islands and saw some dolphins and stopped of on one of the islands callsed Waewaetorea island for an hour or so. the weather was nice. The next day i did a short walk up the hills to view Paihia (which was the town we stayed in) took about an hour and have never walked that long and its not exactly on a straight smoothe path either! after that we drove back to auckland to unload some people and pick up people the next day! A new lot joined the tour and this time majority are british and now half of us on the bus are british and then a ozzies and europeans and 2 from canada.Everyone is really nice and we are getting alone expect my patience have been and will be tested throughout the trip!! We then headed for Rotorua (where is this postcard is suppose to represent!), on the way we went to Waitomo and I abseiled down into a cave! (st. benetics cave) and there i also did a 'flying fox'! it was all very exciting and the cave is so so dark whenoouts lights were off. Its really hard to describe the cave and luckily i didn't see any bats but the Stalactites and Stalagmites were quite call and at times looked very scary, apparently the cave is named after st. benedics because there is a formation that looks like him but i couldn't really see that as i don't really know what he looks like! as there were only a few of us, it was a laugh! we could take photos so u're lucky i'm not gonna bombarded with more! We arrived in Rotorua and its true it does really smell! real bad!! Here i did another type of sport-Zorbing! I basically rolled down a hill in a big plastic ball filled with water! The group was then treated to some 'luging' which is, i can only describe it as go-karting but without the engine and just again 'rolling'/driving down the hill and trying to follow the curvy track without falling out or craching into other people! it was fun! then we went bowling! so it was quite a sporty day for me!!