The next day we drove to Rotorua, but stopped at the Waitapu volcanic zone on the way. Boy, did all that sulphur smell!! What a fantastic experience though. We saw the Lady Knox geyser, which erupts around once every 24 hours for about an hour at a time.

We were also told a little secret by the locals - not to pay to go to one of the many places where the hot springs are located, but to rather drive to a specific place where a hot geothermal spring and a cold river converged. We ended up spending ages soaking in and milling around in this natural hot pool - for free!!! Pity we weren't able to swim though, as there is amoebic meningitis in the water. Nasty……

Rotorua is a really nice, scenic (and stinky) town and an excellent place to visit if you're an outdoors orientated person. It's a pity that we couldn't have spent more time there and that almost everything was closed on Christmas eve and on Christmas day itself.

On Christmas day, we visited Rainbow Springs - a Kiwi wildlife park, where you can see native birds, fish and lizards. It was really nice and peaceful and I would've loved to have spent a couple of hours there - camped out on some grass, with a good book and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

After the wildlife park, the four of us went white water rafting on the Kaituna river, a grade 5 river which boasts the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world - Tutea falls (7m!). Certainly got Jo's heart rate up at every fall. One word - fantastic! Definitely a "must do" when visiting Rotorua.

Glenn and Joanna surprised Jo and I with our Xmas gift on Christmas eve - an evening in a traditional Maori village for a taste of Maori culture. This was such a cool experience, especially as I got to film Don being forced to do the Haka! Mmmm, can use this as blackmail one day in South Africa…

The food (or should I say feast), was amazing. Various types of meats and vegetables, such as kumara (sweet potato), are wrapped in leaves or nowadays - aluminium foil. The food is then placed in a hole in the ground, covered with hot stones and earth and left to cook. This method of cooking is called hangi.

The tour group then headed back to Rotorua on the bus, singing Christmas carols in our respective languages at the tops of our voices.

After that, we hit the road again and headed for Waitomo and the world famous glowworm caves that are located there.