HI, It's me (Tom) this time as I wanted a go.

Last time we blogged we had just got to Auckland. Well since then we have spent three days there, a day in Hamilton with Liz's family and a day in Waitomo working our way to Rotorua where we are now.

We had a great time in Auckland being a bit of a traditional tourist. The first day we had a lovely walk over to an aquarium. We saw penguins that reminded us of Happy Feet as they were kind of just standing there, we half expected for one of them to dance! They also had some masive stingrays which put the one we saw when diving to shame. On the second day we went up the skytower though we decided to do it at night, the views were spectacular. Another highlight was a Maori cultural performance in the cities museam. They performed the haka, which actually was quite impressive and we were shown what poi were actually used for.

After Auckland we made are way to hamilton in the Waikiki?! district to visit Liz's Aunty and uncle once removed (Ros and Gerald and his family). Liz and I had a lovley time, Ros showed us around the local area which included a trip to a surfer community called Ragland. We had a great meal in the evening and they made us feel really welcome. I think Liz understands how her family tree a lot better now. We also saw a real Kiwi house which is basically a wooden bungalow. Gerald was quite amused we found his house interesting!

Today we have travelled to the Waitomo caves and saw the amazing glow worms in the natural habitat. We were taken on boat to a very dark cave where the ceiling is covered by these glow worms. For me as I looked at them for a while it seemed to change into one of those magic eye pictures. At one point in the trip, the guide rather surrealy jumped into a rendition of 'Summer Time' to highlight the acoustics of the caves, except this seemed to spur other people to join in, and Liz and I were trying to contain ourselves in the corner!

After the caves we have made our way to here (Rotorua). Tomorrow we are considering Zorbing and Lugeing (if I can persuade Liz!), more about this later.

Well there you go I had my go, sorry it was a bit of a list, but I hope you enjoy it. Liz and I are missing you loads and we will blog again in the next few days (Liz has just told me more photos may well be added).

Until then, take care

Tom and Liz xxx