Treetops Lodge Rotorua

... and thick. You could almost chew on the stench, and as it was unpredictable, often times we would be gulping in fresh air when a wave of death-stank would hit our mouths and cause us to cough violently. We then visited the mud pools that were right next door. The mud pools were also very unique, they were pools of boiling hot mud. They never look the same two days in a row, since weather plays a large part in how they form and change. The mud pools ...

... book tickets for white water rafting. Since we booked our trip there, she said we got free admissions to Hell's Gate, a natural hot springs located right next to the company that took us white water rafting (which would have cost 35 NZD per person by the way). She also told us that in order to go rafting we had to be at the place by 2:30. It was 2:00 and she told us it was over a ...

... the town information centre so I decided to stop in before lugging my bags over to the hostel. I signed up for a Maori culture evening (that night) and also for a thermal walk the following morning. Satisfied with my efforts I made my way to the hostel (bit of a dive, but apparently a 4 bed dorm to myself) and chatted with the cleaner, who pointed me in the direction of some free thermal parks. Instead I found the main drag and fought with a lazy bank ...

... views then you head over to the luge which is like a cart that you steer and go down a hill with lots of turns then when you get to the bottom you catch a chairlift up to the top again to do it all over again. We had three goes on the luge then headed to the Gondolas for the ride back down. Earlier in the morning we had booked a KJet ride which took us across the river to the other side to go and have a look at this ...

Joel: Today was incredible, mind-bogglingly brilliant - full of the kind of things that make it worth jacking in your job / taking a career break and jetting off to the other side of the world. After countless bus journeys we treat ourselves to hiring a car for a couple of days. It actually works out cheaper than all the shuttles we'd need to explore this area. We get a Toyota and both of us are dazzled at ...

... Bushwalk for a thirty to forty minute stroll through rainforest and wonderful cave formations! We then drove on through to Taupo where we had a picnic lunch overlooking the lake, before heading down to stroll past the Huka Falls. Incredibly clear beautiful, powerful water flows over the rapids at a rate too spectacular to describe. We stopped at the Craters of the Moon thermal area, after Rotorua were rather disappointed. Exhausted by our ...

... local redwood forest.  "Wait," you say.  "Redwoods aren't native to New Zealand."  No.  No, they're not.  About 100 years ago, a company decided to start some plant experiments.  They planted trees from all over the world, including  California Redwoods.  Because the volcanitc ash leaves the land very fertile, in only 10 years, the trees have grown to massive sizes.  While their biggest trees are still only normal size for the California Redwood forest, you have to ...

... and most of the things to do here cost money or are outdoor activities like kayaking or what not. It's not like the shops would have anything that I haven't seen considering I was in Welly for 6 weeks and you can pretty much find every kind of everything in some shop there. Maybe I'll go walk around and then read or something. Hopefully the weather will be nicer tomorrow and I can take some pictures of the lake? They have some gondola ride I can take..but that costs money. Who knows..

... do loads of stuff here but ended up not doing a great deal. The first day we were supposed to go to the thermal baths or something but we ended up takin it easy and going out to the national part to see gysers and the like. It was cool but we were wondering how they knew that the gyser would go at 10:15 every morning. That was until we were ...