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Happy New Year folks. We've been having great fun since our last entry.
Left Auckland and spent a night in Whitianga on the Coromandel peninsula, which was a nice beach town. On the way we stopped at a geothermal hotspot originally named Hot Water Beach. As it was low tide, we were able to dig holes in the sand by the shoreline and sat in piping hot water for half an hour before the tide came in and cooled them down. It was weird but fun.
The next day we caught the bus to Rotorua, which is a volcanic area that stinks of sulphur. there are loads of hot springs like the photo above. We only stayed a night because we wanted to be in taupo for New Years, but we managed to squeeze in some white water rafting and a Maori culture evening and dinner! We whitewater-rafted down the highest waterfall that can be rafted by the public (7 metres) and managed to not fall in, although we did get completely submerged quite a few times. It was so fun, and nice to do it in warm water and the guys taking us down were cool, and made us get out and hold on the sides of the boat down a waterfall called 'the leg breaker'! The cultural evening was better than we expected, the highlight being the Maori food cooked in the traditional underground ovens.
The next day we went to Waitomo, just West of Rotorua, where the main/only attraction is the glow worm caves. We did what is called black water rafting, although there's no rapids and the 'raft' is just a rubber ring each. It started off with a 40 metre vertical abseil down through a tight tunnel into an underground cave. then we had a 25 metre zipline in pitch black and no lights further down into the caves. There we had to jump 3 metres or so into the ice cold water with a rubber ring on our bums. Then we paddled down the river in the dark to look at the millions of glow worms which were amazing. We'd though we must have finished but he then said we had over an hour left (after 3 hours) and had to wade upstream, climb through tight tunnels and clamber down a few rapids. The finale was having to climb without any gear up a 30 foot waterfall, which was scary and really hard, followed by a smaller slightly easier 15 foot waterfall. Needless to say we were knackered that evening, but it was the best thing we'd done to date!
We headed to Lake Taupo on the 30th, and our bus decided to choose 80's/bad taste as the theme for the next nights' festivities! That night Rose was ill so we just chilled out, and the next day didn't feel up to the skydive, so Mike took it for the team and did a skydive over the lake from 15,000 feet. It was amazing, and not at all as scary as I thought. I got a DVD of it, but it doesn't load onto the internet so I may have to see if someone can help me convert it sometime, but the pics are up. After 12000 feet we had to have oxygen masks which freaked out the guy in front who hated the whole thing anyway. It was a minute of freefall which is quite long, but it didn't seem it at the time. I loved the parachute ride at the end, and it was completely silent, which I didn't expect either.
New Years' Eve was a great night. All our group dressed up in suitable attire, and Mike grew a moustache and even cut a mullet into his hair for the occasion! It was a long, intoxicated night but the best night out so far, and everyone was loving it. New Years day we obviously didn't do much, except chill by the lake beach and have a quick swim. this morning we got up at 5 45am to climb Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings, but the weather closed in just as we finished the 1 and half hour bus ride to get there, so we had to go straight back! Nevermind, there's plenty more walks to do in the South Island, and tomorrow we head down to a place called River Valley which is just a night stopover, before going to Wellington for a few nights.
Hope all are well, speak soon, love Rose and Mike.xx
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