The Magic bus rolled out of Waitomo to Rotorua at about 3pm on Monday, now a larger version and driven by a Aussie called Young Joe Young. This name was apparently given to him by the Aboriginis and means "Forever Young" and it seemed to b true. He was to be my bus driver until I entered Wellington and a very entertaining one he proved to be. The drive into Rotorua was fairly short, about 2 1/2 hours. This small town is built on an area of geothermal land which explains its very sulphurous smell. Some of the houses are lucky enough to be in a thermal hotspot which can source their electricity and gas...a way to escape paying the bills! When we arrived we quickly had to turn around in order to make it to the Maori Hangi feast we were attending that evening. I had been looking forward to this for a long time as it was going to be my first taste of proper Maori culture. We travelled in a waka (the Maori name for transport, otherwise known as a bus) by a crazy Maori lady to the Temaki Maori village just outside Rotoura. Here we were to receive a traditional welcoming, if you can call it that, where some rather fierce warriors came out wielding their spears and sticking out their tongues, until our chiefs accepted the token of peace and we were allowed to enter the village. The village consisted of a few wooden huts and camp fires and the villagers demonstrated how their people once trained for fights and everyday life. We were then presented with a song and dance concert in the village hall. The women sang and the men performed the hakka, a thoroughly enjoyable occasion. The important bit of the evening followed, dinner! This was presented to us as a hangi feast, where all the food is cooked underground, and it was absolutely delicous. There was lamb, fish and chicken, all normal kinds of food, but it was cooked to perfection. We finished our evening with a sing song consisting of "You are my sunshine" (this made me a little nostalgic for Grey College formals!) and then karaoke on the bus on the return home, where during a rendition of "Coming Round The Mountain", the lady decided to turn the 40ft bus round a roundabout about 10 times before moving on...I told you she was insane! The next day I left the hostel early to catch Joe's bus again to Taupo, a little town on a very large lake. On our way out of Rotoura we visited the Wai-O-Tapu National Park, a large area of geothermal hot springs and geysers. One such geyser was called the Lady Knox Geyser which was set off once ever 24 hours by a soap infusion. The natural explosion of this geyser would happen between 48 and 72 hours so in order for tourists to see what happens they give it a little bit of a helping hand and therefore a bit of predictability. The whole national park is a mass of multi-coloured boiling mud pools. Especially spectacular was the Champagne Pool, which bubbles and makes a noise very similar to champagne (hence the name) and the Devil's Pool, filled with bright yellow water. The last stop on the way into Taupo was the Huka Falls, which throws about 200,000 litres down its channel every second. We finally arrived at Lake Taupo, big enough to fit the entire span of Singapore and still have room for fishing. This was truly fantastic with the snowy volcanoes towering all around, and if I could have stayed longer I would have done the Tongariro Crossing, the most spectacular one day trek in New Zealand. Unfortunately I had to move onto Wellington the following day so I spent the afternoon trying to sort out my itinerary for the next month as I had just found out that my project in the Cook Islands had been cancelled. This was very disappointing! The following day I again had an early start on my journey into Wellington. This was to be my last day on Joe's bus and it proved to be the most enjoyable with a game of bus bowling and me trying to book the whole bus into the various hotels around the island, for which I earned myself 2 lollipops! We made it into Wellington in the early evening and I had a quiet night in my hostel in preparation for my early crossing into the South Island on Thursday morning. This is where most of the fun will be had!!!!