Marama Resort Rotorua

... which I did this afternoon. It was amazing! It over looks both sides of the city and you can look up the coast line and not see the end. The sand is pure white with the water being pure teal. It gets a little warmer every day and the waves are starting to roll in which is getting people excited about surfing! There are 5 people at the hostel who I've gotten pretty tight with and we are looking at renting a place together ...

... Texas and said "y'all," and who even was bold enough to say that every time I fell into the raft I was going for something other than his legs. From the looks of things, I was almost sure that I was going to be thrown from the raft at some point and into the river.<br> When we approached the first water fall we pulled over and chanted a Maori saying and and since the looks of ...

It was a busy day today, filled with activities demonstrating what New Zealand is all about. We started off on the road towards Wai-o-tapu, a highly active geothermal region near the town of Rotorua. After leaving Hamilton (yey!) once more, we were lucky to be blessed with glorious sunshine. However, once we reached Wai-o-tapu, we were met with thick fog that localised in the area we wanted to visit - it was very eerie - it felt like we should have reached a highly humid ...

... we were pretty scared. It went up very slowly, stopped, then went up higher. The guy gave the thumbs up from the ground but because I wasn't wearing my glasses, I double checked, counted 1,2,3 then swooooop. It was wicked. You fly up and down really quickly then you're off within about a minute. 10 pounds well spent! I wandered around the afternoon. I'd decided not to go to the Maori cultural thing that night so decided to find my own Maori culture. I was looking for the ...

... happy snap' areas (as Josh would put it). Today we went to the Karangahake Reserve gorges. I know going for a walk across a rocky swing bridge with boys jumping up and down sounds like anyones idea of hell (especially for those of us who are terrified of heights) but you'd be surprised how enjoyable it is. In fact, it seemed to sort the hangovers out because you become so distracted by the beautiful ...

... by the lake where a free concert is being held, its classical music not really to my taste but certainly tolerable sitting by the lake in lovely weather. 01/02/2009 Im renting a car for my trip around the East Cape and I pick it up a day early so I can set off at the crack of dawn tomorrow. I use it to drive to Whakarewarewa Forest ...

... things you just kind of have to see to understand. Then, the Maori acted out a piece of their history.  They are really bad actors, but we understood what was going on.  They left their play in the middle and invited us in to their recreation of a pre-European Maori village.  The village was neat.  They had buildings that showed how they stored food, they had people showing how they would have trained, and tons of intricate carvings all over.  You could almost ...

... around four hours and, having set off later than originally planned, we had to have lunch in a fairly unappealing picnic area by the side of the main road. When we did eventually arrive in the town, it was around 4pm and so any thoughts of visiting the local thermal attractions were set aside for the following day. After booking tickets to the Wai-o-Tapu 'Thermal Wonderland' at the ever-helpful local i-Site (basically a grand tourist ...

... a particularly good museum area with some great interactive displays of Maori weaponry and musical instruments, dont worry mum I have taken some photos and video to show you. Having heard how good Peters skiing had been and that the forecast was for the weather to deteriorate soon we then headed off to the ski fields of North Island.

... as a musical memento it sure did its job. I heard it played for the first time after the tour in my local supermarket some months later and for that three or four minutes I wandered along the aisles in a dream&#8211;like state, probably with a stupid grin on my face, thinking back to the wonderful faces and places that made this holiday in NZ so special. <br><br>Lunch was in the town of Matamata, or Hobbiton as the signs proudly displayed by the ...