Peered out of the window on the day of the skydive at 7.30am to find lots of cloud and definately a stronger wind than yesturday evening. No chance, i thought. I didnt even wake Gemma. Decided to give the centre a call just to get confirmation, only to be told we were on.....we had 10 mins!! We didnt even have time for breakfast, although that was probably for the best. I still thought it may be cancelled when we got there but the first group were ready to go - w...

On the way to Waitomo we headed to another thermal area called Te Puia where we saw our first erupting geyser. It was spraying boiling water a few metres into the air. There were also loads of bubbling mud pools, this whole area feels very alive. Next we stopped at a kiwi bird house to see some kiwis. You rarely see them in the wild now so this was the best way. They look a bit like a chicken but with really long beaks.Waitomo is the area famous for all the under...

We headed inland from Franz Josef to a small lakeside town called Wanaka. On the way we stopped at another mirror lake called lake Matheson it was really beautiful, but having seen so many lakes its hard not to get complacent about it. We're a bit laked out at the mo - and waterfalled out! The journey also took us to the imposing mountain ranges of the Mt Aspiring national park and we got our first glimpse of Mt Cook, which was pretty cool. We only stayed ove...

Rotorua STINKS!! and i dont mean that in a horrible way, it really does. The town is built on a geothermal area and the stench is sulphur wafting up through geothermal hotspots. As you walk through the town you can see steam rising randomly from the ground. It really was the strangest landscape ive ever seen. We visited one of the geothermal parks. Throughout the park there were steamy, stinky bubbling pools of mud and bubbling lakes. The whole area was boiling h...

Took our first journey south to Mercury bay. On the way we stopped at a place called Cathedral Cove, which is a beautiful tropical looking bay where the rocks have formed into a cathedral-shaped archway.Next we visited the strangest beach - hot water beach....Again its pretty self explainitary but basically everyone hires shovels and you walk down to the beach to a certain area and start digging. There is a thermal outlet comin up throught he sand and the whole y...