Kuirau Park Motor Lodge Rotorua

... the green light comes on and i know this means the door will be opened and before i know it my legs are out the plane and were falling...so fast i cant explain it. You cant imagine it. But at this point i wasnt atall scared but completly loving it and amazed at the feeling of falling. It doesnt feel like your falling just on some sort of extremely fast ride. Before i know it the parachute opens and were calmly floating to the ground, a few turns thrown in to get us to the ...

... at a balmy 33° C, which I had to myself for an early evening swim. The room was spacious with a choice of two double beds and came in at £58 a night including a magnificent buffet breakfast!<br><br>The evening show and &#8220;hangi&#8221; banquet was entertaining but left me with little to take away as to Maori culture. I did get to do the old generation game thing and partake in a Haka (so glad that no one there knew me).

... op and the chance to stock up on a pie or three (New Zealand pies are insanely good). When we arrived in Rotorua the first thing we noticed was the disgusting pungent egg smell that followed us whereever we went. After controlling our gag reflexes we soon became accostumed to what was to become a familiar scent. In the afternoon, me, Anna and Abbe took part in the white water rafting activity which was easily ...

... museum itself was nice. It was originally a bath house using geothermal water to cure people. People travelled from as far as Europe to use them. The war put a stop to people travelling so far so the bath house went out of business and was turned into a nightclub! It was closed for several years and then reopened. We went on a guided tour of the museum where we saw some of the original baths and told the history of the baths. There were two rooms in the museum ...

... got some great photo ops, and then relaxed in the mud path and hot spring pools. My skin felt great! When I got back to my hotel, however, I felt like I needed another shower, since the therapeutic mud had a lot of sulfur. Soft, sulfur-smelling skin, not so good. I also felt like I needed to wash my clothes - fortunately my place had a laundry room. I crashed that night after an action packed day. I planned to leave the next afternoon on the Intercity Bus for the East Coast to ...

... time to get some speed and strength over the rapids, then also needed at the back to even things out.<br><br> Here comes the first major rapid and whooossh we went down and crashed at the bottom with a bit of a bang.. 'man that was a drop! glad thats over' guide: 'that was the smallest rapid, it was only 3 metres'... oh bugger this is gonna be a challenge!!<br><br>After getting battered and white knuckles a few times then we all pulled over ...

... threatened. I managed an amazing burp, the sort alot of men would be proud of! The Apprentice took over for a while and we ended up wedged on a rock, which was as exciting as hitting one, we had to bounce up an down while he got in the water to drag us off. Mad Max got us excited about an unofficial drop...we were all up for it. This involved getting out, carrying the raft up a bank, along a path and setting it nose down, 5 meters above the river ...

I'm sitting here in Tourism Rotorua on Fenton Street, having had a really awesome day - I've done the ultimate - the ultimate for me that is: a tandem skydive at 9000 ft. But more of that later. The day started with the shuttle bus to Wai-O-Tapu otherwise known as 'Thermal Wonderland'. So we were taken to see mud pools, where there was this spectacular violent boiling mud which kept on erupting - the largest in New Zealand. And then it was off to Lady Knox ...

... and two daughters but these were younger then the first I mentioned. All children were younger then I. The hot springs were marvelous. There were 6 pools of varying temperatures going from clodest to hottest. There was one pool near the mens changerooms that was supposed to be the hottest tub but it was empty. We also had the option of swimming in the lake. We spent most of our time in the hottest pool and talked with the others. The air smelled like sulfur and after bathing in it for an ...

... this place has about 25 different sites to see as you walk around a loop. The main feature though is the daiily 'eruption' of the geyser. At 10:15 am they drop some soap into the geyser, this breaks the barrier between the cold water on top and the 230 degree water below and so you get a gush of water up into the sky, it was about 15 metres high and the soap and bubbles add to the effect. From here we headed back to Auckland for the New Years eve party.