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Bay of Islands - Auckland - Rototura
So after completly wasting my time in the Bay of Islands we headed back to Auckland where we had a couple of hours in the City - I went up the Sky Tower to see the view... it was nice but not a patch of the Sydney Sky Tower! One of the Aussie Girls Bianca did a bungee of it which was cool to watch! We left Auckland and headed to Rotorua, stopping on the way at "Hobbiton" for Lord of the Rings fans - it was a total let down there were zero Wizards zeros Orcs zero Elfs and worst of all ZERO HOBBITS!!! Thankfully we were not here that long as the more I did not see the more annoyed I got with rubbish Hobbiton.
We eventually arrived at Rotorua which is a town that smells of egg! It is very close to the Earths crust and has natural hot pools all over the place and steam coming out of the ground... the egg smell comes from the Sulphur! Which we were told we would get used to - I did not!
Our accomodation in Rotorua was pretty nice compared to what I am used to ! We were told we would have a Spa at the back of each room... so we were all planning to spend the evening having drinks in our hot tub! It turned out to be a hot tub shaped bath though with no jets! So we took it upon ourselves to add bubbles when filling it up... it got cold pretty quick though so I did not spend long in it and ended up having an early night.
Woke up at 8am the next day to face one of my many water based fears and go White Water Rafting! Most of the group were doing it and not many of us had done it before so we were all pretty excited - I was dead scared.. but figured if Michelle has done it I could do it! There was only 4 of us in the raft (Me Emma Laura and Lorraine) + 2 mental rafting guys who spent the whole time trying to tip the raft! We had a wicked time and I managed to stay in the raft - even down the 7m waterfall where we lost Emma!!! I did get soaked though when the Raft guys "Bob and Dave" steered us back into a waterfall! gits!
In the afternoon me Emma and Laura went Zorbing - which is rolling down a big hill in an inflatable hamster ball with cold water in it! It only lasted about 20 seconds but was wicked fun... I may have to purchase a Zorb upon my return to the UK!!
The next day we went to visit a Maori village called "Whakarewarewa" The Thermal Village! It really really smelt! The steam was coming out of the ground from everywhere and there were bubbling mud pools all over the place! It was a very surreal place - and I got some excellent pictures! We also were treated to a Maori concert followed by a "Hangi" which is food cooked in the hot pools - this was a bit rubbish for me as it was mainly meat but was cool to eat food that had been cooked in the ground!
After being in the village for a few hours we left - taking the lingering smell of sulphur with us - I am looking forward to washing my hair! We left Rotorua and headed to Taupo stopping on route at a natural power station and an awesome waterfall called Huka Falls, now that would be cool to raft down! But apparently its illegal!
Other than the stench Rotorua was a pretty cool place - next stop Taupo!
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