On our flight from Sydney to Auckland, we filled out a very thotough visa form, answering 'no' to all the questions including 'have you been in any forests/rainforests?' because we were scared they wouldn't let us into their country otherwise. At the bag search desk we were asked if we had any hiking boots, which Lucy did, and where we had worn them to which Lucy replies, 'not in any forests or anything, I've just worn them around the hotel' - very unconvincing but they let us in anyway!

Auckland was freezing so we stupidly went in search of coats at 10pm on a Sunday night with no luck, obviously. We had a good nights sleep in our bunk beds as we were the only ones in our dorm and woke up at 6am to catch our first Kiwi Experience bus up to the Bay of Islands at 7.20. After a hell of a lot of faffing we arrived to the bus stop at 7.23 and missed the bus - another brilliant start (we've started calling it 'first night syndrome'). We decided to stay in Auckland until Tuesday and, having already checked out of our room, decided to go in search of some coats, scarves, gloves, thermals and socks - our bodies couldn't cope after a month in the 40 degree Thai heat, and neither could our bank balances it seems as we were a little shocked at how expensive clothes were compared to the 2 quid clothes we were used to. So we spent a hilarious day in the kids departments in all shops, proudly squeezing into some age 14 thermals. We had no luck with the coats though, we did consider matching bright pink checked coats but decided against it, and so the only possible other option, after 5 hours of searching, was Abercrombie and Fitch, the well known outdoor clothing shop (not - but they are nice coats!).

We then went to meet our friend, Joe O'Donoghue from school, who lives at Auckland university and offered us his bed for the next 2 nights in the uni halls - the nicest halls ever! After a massive catch up we went to sleep and slept for 13 hours, waking up at 12 the next day, woops! Joe took us on a tour of Auckland which was beautiful with the sun shining. Then we took a trip up the Auckland sky tower with stunning views over the city, harbour and the sea (look at the pictures) and we saw a few people jump from the top of the tower. Joe introduced us to Wendy's $5 meals, which I'm sure they'll be many more of, before we headed back to the halls to get ready to go out that night. A few funnels later, we headed out to a bar near the harbour with Lucy bravely/stupidly wearing a vest and shorts. After being deprived of cider in Thailand we enjoyed a couple of pints before we headed home, hoping to make the bus the following day.

Amazingly we made it to the bus on time and headed to Hot Water Beach. We walked down to Cathedral Cove, a beautiful beach with natural archways and stacks (Mr. Pietralski would've been in heaven) and did some rock hopping, in the wrong direction with 20 people following us, oops! That night, at low tide, we took our spades and our bikinis and headed to Hot Water Beach. You can dig down in the sand and the geothermal activity heats the water so it's boiling hot, some too hot to sit in and we stripped down into our bikinis, in the freezing cold and lay in these natural pools under the stars - it was amazing!

The following day we got back on the bus and headed for Waitomo. This is when we realised how annpying the people on our bus were... with their 'oh, I've been travelling for 15 months...' 'when I was in...' stories, and decided to change buses as soon as we could! We stopped for a short walk down the old gold mines. We linked together and shuffled through a pitch black tunnel, where Lucy managed to whack her head on the side of the tunnel! When we arrived at Waitomo, we booked to go into the glow worm caves. We went down into a huge limestone cave and saw thousands upon thousands of tiny glow worms, it was really spectacular (look at the pictures) and we even had a boat ride through the cave too.

That night, the bus driver arranged a game of 'killer pool' at the local pub where everyone took it in turns to pot a ball, if you didn't pot a ball you lost a life. Lucy steps up for her first turn and skilfully hits the orange stripe ball instead of the white - very embarassing infront of everyone. Then Jess steps up, and, equally as skilfully, scuffs the top of the white, hitting no other balls - needless to say we lost our lives very quickly!

The following day we got back on the Kiwi bus, thankfully the last one with the keen travellers, and headed to Rotorua where the O'Donoghues have a farm. First, we stopped at the luging. This involved getting a cable car up to the top of the mountain, with beautiful views over Lake Rotorua and then getting a skateboard with a steering wheel (a luge) down the mountain. They went so much faster than we were expecting and we had a few crashes and dodgy corners - it was so much fun! We did try to video the scenic route down, Jess holding the camera in her mouth as she steered and getting a great video of the sky haha! This was probably one of the best activities we'd done so far and then Chris O'D came to pick us up to take us back to their farm.

Wow - they have a beautiful house with beautiful views and we even had our own cottage (WITH AN ELECTRIC BLANKET!) to stay in - we were in heaven. After a much needed cup of tea (Lucy hasn't had one for a month!) we settled into our cottage and saw a few of the animals - pigs, chickens, cows, bulls, sheep... That night we went to some hot springs, natural hot pools as Rotorua has loads of thermal activity, there's random steam rising from the floor in some places and had a massive catch up with Chris and Eamon about life back home.

We had the best sleep yet that night and in the morning we had a huge fry up before Joe came back from uni to play football. We drove to the coast and attempted to climb Mount Maunganui but we had limited time as Joe and Andy were playing footy so only made it half way up. We watched them play football that afternoon (they won!), got another Wendy's $5 meal (we couldn't resist!) and then came home for a steak (LUXURY!). That night we went to a couple of house parties for pre-drinks, all the girls were so excited we were from England - the same place as One Direction haha, before we headed out to explore what Rotorua had to offer. We were very impressed and had a really good night out... until the end. Some Maoris (native New Zealanders, the ones that do the hakka) started on Joe and Andy in the club, giving Joe a bloody nose and a black eye but luckily nothing too serious!

This morning Jess was feeling very delicate so Lucy left her in bed and went back to the house. Eamon came in announcing he'd just bought 15 more cattle, standard for a Sunday morning eh?! And then took Lucy in the truck around their 70 acres of land to show her where they plan to build their next house! We've had a very chilled day today, Joe and Andy have gone back to Auckland but we think we're going to stay here another 2 nights before we get back onto our new bus as its so nice here and there's still so much left to do before we head further south to Taupo.

Sorry for the huge update, we will try to do better with keeping you up to date next time but internet is really expensive here. Lucy is already thinking of emigrating, we love it here!

J&L x