Devonwood Manor Rotorua

... he wanted to take up the offer! It was 10.45am so we made a quick U-turn and headed for the bungy site. Luke put his name down, paid up, and was getting fastened up by 10.55am! I chickened out - mainly due to the fact I didn't think i could afford it and I didnt want to do sky dive and bungy on consecutive days, but also because I was too bloody scared! But, it meant that I was able to take some photos of him plunging to his death! and I must ...

... it was that small you couldn't even fit a cat into it to swing! These rooms were outside as well and basically a pre-fab type building. The insulation wasn't great and the gap at the bottom of the door made the rooms fairly cold at night - luckily enough we had an electric heater and the hot water pipe ran along the wall and also provided heat (not by design id imagine!). The walls are wafer thin and you can hear clearly throughout the courtyard everything. Plus the ...

... creating garments from their "flax"... a hearty fiber scraped from the back of a local plant. Having heard from our guide about the various properties of the local mud we purchased some from the gift shop. We returned "home" (camper van, spot 12) and had a short rest before heading out for a "Zorb". What is that you ask? Well, it's a New Zealand creation of a very large rubber ball ...

... genial! je m'eclate et ca me fait travailler mes petits muscles!! et puis le bus recupere quelques personnes a Rotorua que j'ai rencontre dans mon premier bus et qui sont vraiment sympa! c'est sympa de se retrouver... Nous nous dirigeons ensuite vers Taupo ou j'avais reserve un saut en parachute... mais le temps n'est pas au rendez vous... pluie et vent... ca sera pour une prochaine fois et qui sait p-ete qu'il y a des meilleurs endroit ou le faire ...

... walked into town with Jayne moaning about how we should have used the car. It was very hot. The town reminded us of a very small Las Vegas with every imaginable fast food outlet on the main road. We found the lake path and saw the sulphur lake which was turquoise blue. We ventured on to the main front of Lake Rotorua where there was a big concert taking place which prevented us carrying on around ...

... belive that explains a few strong similarities NZ has to the US, i'll talk about that later. Not that land wasn't taken from the Maori -- it was but there are no "Reservations" I know of like we have in the US and Maori culture is very well integrated into almost everything. For instance most of the street signs also have the Maori language. The feast was great and the history lesson interesting! Since I'm not hot about the thermal pools (no pun intended) we went ...

... up to 14,000 once the lambs arrived. Sadly, they weren't the right sort of sheep; they weren't 'Middle Earth' enough so Peter Jackson had the right sort of sheep imported, black nosed.... Peter Jackson was neurotic about security during the preparation/building of the film set and the subsequent filming; some sort of flying veto was introduced by the authorities-and policed. Basically, if anyway was caught flying below X thousand feet ...

... in it so that we were rolling on top of each other all the way down the hill. It was super fun, except that it was pretty cold that day and when we got out of the zorb we were freezing. That afternoon, we decided to go lugeing, which Paul and Jeremy were willing to do. We rode up a mountain on a gondola that gave us beautiful views of the area. At the top, we got on a luge, which is kind of like a sled, and raced down a 2 ...

... siin pole mõtet sõn*deg* sed* kirjeld*d*, v*id v**d*t* pilte p*lj*ste t*gumikeg* m*ooridest! Enne sellest piirkonn*st l*hkumist käisime är* k* W*i-o-T*pu geotermilisel imedem**l (päriselt t*l on selline nimi!). Se*l ringi käies p*neb imest*m*, milleks loodus võimeline on j* KUIDAS?! Piltidelt v**d*tes pole võib-oll* nii müstiline, kuid koh*pe*l ikk* v**t*d erkrohelist vedelikku j* nendid, et küll keemikutel oleks siin tore ringi müt*t* :)

... dance and a hangi, a traditionally cooked meal in an earth oven. Very touristy, but worth it as we had never been invited to a Maori marae (gathering) during our time in Invercargill. Rotorua is a very traditional region with a large Maori population who are proud of their heritage. Rotorua is a ...