Up and all sorted with Hire Car & calling Joyce re arrangements for meeting up on Saturday. On our way by 11am in our little Corolla Hatch. Not being big city drivers we did well to go from Auckland city centre to finding our way onto the Southern Freeway with only a couple of glitches! Amazing countryside with luscious paddocks & a never ending supply of dairy farms & herds of cattle. Our lunch stop was a cheese factory where we bought a few samples for the next few days. Then on to Rotorua which was an interesting place. Beautiful scenery in town & around the lake but quite a sulphur smell from all the springs. After a look around we headed to Taupo, another pretty lakeside town. Tomorrow we intend to go check out some of the geyser springs in the area before heading to Napier in the Hawkes Bay area. One interesting thing of note way a cycle path that snaked alongside the road for a long time before heading off inland between Rotorua & Taupo. A dull day but no rain, just cool weather today.