Our night in Auckland wasn't too bad, we got there at about 8pm and left at 8am the next morning so barely any time really! We then headed to Mercury Bay. The bus was about half full so met a few nice people on there, everyone pretty tired and for most it was the start of their travels around NZ, so we had a little introductry to kiwi bus thing by the driver. We drove to Mercury Bay stopping at a couple of places along the way, Cathedral Cove which was pretty cool, a small cove with giant rocks and stuff, and then carried on to where we were staying in Mercury Bay. It was more of a stopover really as the town we were in was really small but it was quite homely, had home cooked spaghetti then watched a film! The buses are really good as the drivers tell us about places as we drive through them, Maori history and stuff which is interesting! We were up early (again!) for the bus journey at 7.25am the next day so no lie in! Our room was a bit like a fancy shed so quite small but again it wasn't for long! We were heading to Rotorua, one of the big attractions in NZ. Along the way we stopped at a place called Karahange Gorge where we ate lunch and also walked through some old mining tunnels, some of it a bit creepy!!! We also stopped at a place called Matamata, which was where they filmed the scenes for Hobbiton in Lord of the Rings, although all the film set had obviously been taken away and the scenes 'recreated' by local companies for tourists, so it didn't look too familiar!

We got to Rotorua on Friday at about 3pm, and we had all booked to do 'lugeing'...basically you go up to the top of a mountain in a gondola, then come down in what looks like a taboggon with wheels, and there was three different tracks of different difficulty (of course we did all three!) and it was awesome! Some party you went really fast and even pulling back on the brake didn't do much! Corners were a bit dodgy as well as some didn't have barriers so if you over shot a corner there was a likelyhood you could fall down quite a steep bit of this hillside! Luckily that didn't happen though and we happily raced down! Rotorua is a pretty interesting place, it's a 'geothermal hotspot' so there's natural hot springs and mudpools everywhere. It was weird as as you walked around there was steam coming from rocks! The only downside though was it properly STUNK of sulphur, which is why the city is nicknamed as 'Rottonrua'-nice smell of bad eggs! But we spent two nights here, the first night not doing much as we were really tired! And on Saturday we just walked about the town a bit, Steve and Tom did the climbing wall and me and Ben went to Lake Rotorua to see it, it's a HUGE lake that's steaming so where it's a good sight spot, it was a bad smelling spot! Then Saturday night we just went for a few drinks at Lava bar one of the hostel bars. Today we got a bit of a lie in, our bus was an hour later at 9.30am plus the change in daylight savings meant that was effectively 10.30am! So we went on the bus and got off almost immediately to do a tour of the Rotorua Cultural centre where we were told a bit more about Maori history and some more about the mud pools and geysers! Also learnt the Haka (all blacks war chant) which was quite funny! And have now arrived in Waitamo! It's a REALLY small town, literally about one shop but it's really nice. We're staying in the best hostel by far (so far!)...we have SOFT beds, nice bed linen, a balcony AND an ensuite all for a discounted price for being on the Kiwi bus...can't complain! So looking forward to going to bed that's for sure.