Hello!

This is probably going to be a long blog as we have done so much in the past 5 days so I warn you now and apologise! I also take this opportunity to say that we are aware that we have taken many many many photos in the past five days and that they may be a little repetitive.....but we love it!

We left Wellington on Tuesday morning after picking up our car, a Toyota Corolla who Jo quickly named Daisy. We got a little bit carried away with the car thing and she kind of became our child! It has been great having the freedom of a car here and really useful, without Daisy we wouldn't have been able to do half the things we have done! We took our time driving up to Lake Taupo...stopping off almost everywhere we could at first on a great hunt for some CDs for the car. The drive was pretty spectacular, the NZ countryside is gorgeous and we enjoyed driving through hills and forests that we kept trying to place in Lord of the Rings, and we could see snow-capped mountains in the distance. We drove over what is known as the Desert Road, it really is a wilderness up there and the weather was pretty extreme, wet and wild...we were driving through the clouds!

We spent the next day driving to different sights just outside of Taupo. Firstly we went upto the Huka Falls which were amazing and totally different to what we were expecting: we thought it would just be one large waterfall but actually the water of the river here was forced through a gorge aswell as dropping through a series of waterfalls and the results were spectacular! The water was moving so quickly and was so blue, it was gorgeous, our pictures show how much we liked it! Then we drove up to the Aratiatia Rapids which occur 3 times a day when water is released through a dam and forced through a very narrow gorge. Although there was no wall of water rushing down the gorge as Jo had hoped, watching the progression of the water as it filled up was cool, we have tried to show the process somewhat with our photos. Next it was on to the Huka Prawn Farm where we played a hole-in-one golf challenge over the pools of Prawns. Jo got closest to winning...kind of...she nearly got it into the kids hole :-S By this point we were stopping off at every touristy spot we saw, including the Honey Hive where we were terrified to realised that we were stood next to an indoor bee hive! It was glassed in but all these bees were buzzing around us in glass tubes making us paranoid and itchy! We also had a walk through a geo-thermal park, the Craters of the Moon, which was pretty good. We had a nosy at the bungy jump, Dave is quite tempted to do it but we agreed he better try the Oblivion ride at Alton Towers first (where you plummet down a vertical drop into a black hole) as he was too scared to do this last time we went!!! Before calling it a day we let ourselves down in terms of finding things...we had done so well all day finding our way around and so headed off to go look at a sulphur lake...after half an hour or so of driving we turned back and realised we had been going completely the wrong way!! So after a nap to recover our strength after a busy day we went out for tea at an Indian which despite seeming very unpromising was the best Indian we have ever had! So we went to bed with nice warm full tummys :-)

We had an early start on Thursday when we headed upto Rotorua. We stopped off at Orakei Korako on a whim and were so glad we did! It was a geo-thermal area located in the Hidden Valley, which really was hidden - we thought we would never find it! It was well worth the extra driving though, we were ferried across to the park and then spent a while exploring the Silica Terrace, watching a geyser erupt, seeing hot pools, mud pools and caves. We arrived in Rotorua and found a motel to stay in; we had never stayed in a motel before and really liked it, not only was there safe parking for Daisy, we had a microwave, fridge etc in our room, plus a spa bath! Very luxurious! It was quite old fashioned but that was good as it meant it was cheap and cheerful! As soon as we had dumped our bags in our room we went straight off to Zorb. For those of you who do not know what this is you basically get rolled down a hill inside a giant inflated ball! We opted for the Hydro-slide, the two of us had to dive into a ball which then had warm water poured into it and we slipped and slid around inside the ball as we rolled down! It was so much fun, Jo couldn't stop laughing hysterically all the way down! We were absoultely soaked and were very glad we had hired clothes for it! We just wandered around for the rest of the day and relaxed with wine and beer courtesy of Graham and Nikki that evening, making the most of our Spa bath and the TV with a sky movies channel much to Jo's delight!

On Friday we visited Te Puia, a geo-thermal valley with a Maori Cultural Centre. We had a look at the exhibitions about Maori's, Dave was particularly interested in this, and checked out the traditional Maori village and the religious buildings such as the meeting house. We then saw a Maori show in the meeting house which began with a traditional greeting of the warriors to us guests, and a welcome dance - the Haka Pohiri - before watching them perform some ceremonies and the famous war Haka. That afternoon we went up to the top of a hill via a cable car and had 3 goes each on the luge - kind of like sledging on a concrete track but able to steer like on a bike. Jo was a bit scared by this after her first go and so was much slower than Dave (hence why there are only pictures of Jo!) but soon got into it and we had loads of fun, although only Dave tried the advanced track! After that we headed to the drivng range as Dave fancied a go, needless to say Jo was rubbish at it, but Dave reckons her golf skills are improving. We then spent another evening relaxing at the motel, taking advantage of the facilities and having another microwave meal!

On Saturday it absoulutely threw it down so we had a lie in before heading out for lunch and a trip to the Polynesian Spa. We relaxed in both alkaline and acid pools which were so hot, ranging from 36-42 degrees c. The pools are open air though so the rain falling on our faces was a really nice contrast! The spa was good but we didnt last much longer than an hour, you just get kind of hot and uncomfortable after too long! Before we went to Rotorua everyone kept telling us it really smelt because of all the sulphur but we were pleasantly surprsed to find it was not too bad, only certain places were really smelly, but when it rained it was so much worse! You kind of got used to it though.

Next stop Auckland, where we sadly say goodbye to Daisy! We have really enjoyed this mini road trip. We feel kind of strange at the moment; it seems like we have been away for so long and we are really excited to get back and see everyone, but at the same time it has just hit us that the trip is nearly over which is so sad as we have had such a great time. But we still have 2 fantastic places to visit after NZ which we are excited for, a bit of sun, sea and sand in Fiji and star spotting in LA! Hope the weather has improved in England for you now, and that it is nice for us when we get back!

See you all soon! Lots of love, Joanne and David xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx