Day 16 (sorry this is a long one)

Rotorua - Breathe in the Sulpher rich air of Rotorua and youve already got a taste of NZ most Dynamic thermal area with Spurting Geysers, Steaming hot Springs and Exploding Mud pools. The Maori revered this unigue topograpghy , naming one of the most spectacualr areas Waiotapu (sacred water)

Today maoris cultural performances and Hangi are as big an attration as the landscape itself. Despite the Ubiquitous rotten egg odour, the Sulpher City is one of the most touriseted spots on the north island.

severely pissed off and it went for Luke, in fact it jumped straight at his balls...

Lonely planet - NZ

The above paragraph doesnt even scratch the surface, and unfortunately neither did we- however we did have one hell of a day, after waking up at 0730 we showered breakfasted and popped into the office, we asked to be booked onto the Matai Maori village and Rainbow Springs tour cost about $196 - steep we thought but hey we are only here once.

After that we headed out to do the one Activity i had been really looking forward to ZORBING!! we drove out to Agrodome After Getting lost for 30 mins, when we pulled in to the Zorb place it was right infornt of us we sat in the van for a while and eatched a couple fo people got down the hill, i finished my Cigarette and we headed into the office, Caz was....Nervous but still up for it, we wondered around and wer about to got back to the van to watch a few more poople come doen to put caz mind at rest when two massive coach load of people turned up - the decision was made for us,we booked for a tandem Hydro zorb - look a the website, but imageine a giant inflatable ball with a smaller one inside it, two people inside that throuw in a few gallons of warm water and push down a dirty great big hill... We got our free chanbge of clothes (thanks to a free voucher from Cosy Cottage Holiday park) and got changed. the Toyota land cruised picked us up and we went screaming off road uphill, it was a gravel track and he was really giving it some.. Caz and i locked out hands under the seat and bent knees to lock us into the seats, maybe it was expreience in the back of 4 tonners and Landys por maybe Common Sense...Common sense that the loud americans didnt have and they whoopped hollered and yehhad all over the back of the wagon, you wouldnt mind till you get a fat ass in your face!

That over we queued and our Zorb cam up you have to "Superman" through the small opening, mine was impressive all the way in and rolled, caz got stuck at her waist and kicked the Guy in the Family Jewels when she was struggling to get in - I laughed, he didnt.

They stuck the water in and we shove our selves down the hill.

Iamgine being in a washing machine, but more fun its the only way to descibe it, it was hoofing, we flipped spun and skided everywhere, for the 200m (ithink) you roll. you bounce at the bottom then they start taking the obligatory photos at $25 a pop, we had them tooke but didnt buy them. Changed and dry we headed out for the Gondola and luge ride...

Not hard to find as it was on the mian road and we had already passed ti twice that morning try to find the Agrodome (where the Zorb is) we pulled up and parked, got the combo ticket Six luge rides and the Gondola up and down.

as we got int the gondola it was another cheesy smile so they couyld superimpose your head onto anoth picture and try to sell it to you, no thanks..

we got to the top and wonderd around the toursit shop and tehn got to the luges, you have to pick you helmet before you line up and there are three big helemt buckets: Kids , Adult Small & Medium and Large, i found a medium helemt fitted nicely, Caz however could not.. i pissed myself and she put on a kids helemt and asked me if it was ok, it sat on the top of her head like a topknot, she got from my reaction it was not ok...

Helmets on and luge in hand we had to go down the scenice track first to get used to it, by it i mean the luge and by that its like a rectangular bin led with BMX hadle bars on hoel them in the Middle to Go, pull them back to stop and let them go forward to lose control plummet of the mountain and Die - simple.

we did the Sceneic track at about 300000mph i came off the track tiwce and realised that i probably would have to use the Brake. Two go left we walked thgouth the turnstyles again, i walked through whilst caz got her ticket electronicall scanned, as she did that i pulled the Turnstyle around to try and hit her in the butt, however she wasnt in it yet, i had just wasted a go... Whoops (we boughta single ride for $7.50 in the shop nect to it so we could both have three goes)  we did the Next two goes on the Advanced track .... this track we hit Warp Speed 4 there was a big hill, for which it told you slow down, we both did - a bit on the First go, and not at all on the second, After about 4 seconds in the air, you start to wonder if you made the right choice.. and when you land HARD on your Ass bone you realize that you hadnt!

all done we caught the Gondola down and headed back to the campsite for a spot of lunch before we drove to the Green and Blue lakes for a swim.

When we arrive at the Blue lake there was already anumber of people splashing around and as it had a slide we were sold, Clothes off, trunks on we ran to the lake for about toe deep in turned round and ran out again. Cold like you wouldnt believe, why there were no ice bergs i dont know.

Seeing all the children loving the water in the lake spurred us on and we inched in to a bout waist height after that i dnke my head and was ok -  Caz however wouldnt and decided the slide would be the best way to tackle the cold, so up she went,and down she went and off floated her Bikini top, after re dressing herself we carried on or about an hour before we headed of to the camp to shower and prep ourselves for the night ahead.

Caz writes the next bit whilst Kato sorts out the photos .. told you they would come soon.. some of em any way!!

So it's 6o'clock and we're waiting to be picked up to go to the Mauri

village, Matai village for the evening, it's an interestingly decorated (not

as good as our black sabbath van) coach and it's a bit of a squeeze,

obviously this evening is very popular!  Arrving at the village we went

straight into the dining hall and walking past a rather large rectangular

hole in the ground, hmmm i thought to myself i imagine that would be a good

bonfire site!  Once inside we are seated and low and behold the world really

is a small place, we're sat opposite a couple from Sutton Coldfield and next

to a couple of girls from Switzerland so slightly further afield!!!!  Our

host, then gets up to welcome us and warms up the crowd by working out where

everyone is from...16 countries on and this guys speaking 16 different

languages!  We're all sat there in awe and i'm starting to feel inspired to

take up languages again and i wasn't even that good at it at school!!  So we

move down into the bush to go and see the first part of the show and on our

way out of the dining room i see the huge hole i thought would make a good

bonfire...turns out that's where our dinner is being cooked and it's

actually called a Hangi, not quite a bonfire eh!?  As we make our way

through the bush we come accross a small spring and stream, it truly is the

clearest water i have ever seen, the water actually comes down through the

volcanic rock and bubbles up through the soil and looks drinkable!

(although i didn't try it i have to admit!)  and 2 minutes later we've got a

Mauri war canoe heading in our direction sounding and looking fairly scary!

It was absolutely amazing, really impressive although i would not like to

have one of those come towards me in the bush if i was on my own!!  Once the

war canoe has been and gone we move on into the bush and take our seats in

front of a stage which had the backing of an old Mauri village, this is

where the welcoming ceremony would start and for this we needed a chief...

ours, who had been picked back at the dining hall by our host (he may be

able to speak 16 languages but he isn't good at choosing chiefs!) was called

Richard and once the Marui chief had made his welcome speach then chief

Richard of our 16 nations tribe would have to make his and accept the

gift...as far as i knew a good speach did not include precise details about

your royal blood connections!!!!  And after the very interesting Mauri

welcomging and disapopinting chief of the 16nations speach the chief starts

speaking in English and takes us through some of the weapons their ancestors

used, we also have some dancing and singing by the women who use what i can

only describe as balls on strings...? If you would like a demonstration i am

led to believe that Luke is fairly good at it!  We then got a full demo of

the famous Haka and even taught some of the movements although i'm sure that i just looked stupid when i was doing it whereas they looked really quite

scary!  Ah well, at least they would have had a good giggle at me i guess?!

One of the most interesting parts of the evening was towards the end where

the chief explained about the tattoos they wore.  On a man the face is

covered by 4 birds which over time can be gained, a bat, parrot, kiwi and

owl.  The women only wear the owl on the chin and it comes up to cover the

lips.  And that's the end of that, we all went back up to the dining hall

where dinner was now ready to eat, it really was some of the nicest lamb i

have ever tasted, (i thought luke cared about me until i saw him eat the

lamb, i had no chance!  the lamb is now officially his first love) the chicken just fell of the bone and don't get me started on the chocolate cake for pudding (i may have gone back for seconds...a couple of times!) It really was a good dinner and all cooked by the Hangi/bonfire in my case!

After dinner becase we had paid a little bit extra we had the Rainbow Springs tour to enjoy.  We made our way back down towards the spring i mentioned earlier, the unbelievebly clear one, where we admired the eels and fish swimming around (it was nothing like the canals in Birmingham or docks in Bristol, for a start there we're fish living in the water!!) and then they switched the lights out...and yet it was still lit becuase of the glow worms around the edge of the water, again it was an amazing sight, one i would definitely go back and see again if i was given the opportunity.  We then made our way on to see all sorts of creatures (not quite like creature comforts in the Uk but some of them weren't far off!) We spent the evening walking around visitng Rainbow Trout, 40 year old eels, which by the way are only middle aged!) we also found out that Manuka is also known as TeaTree!  (that may not shock most of you but i was impresssed as i had no idea!) Tautora lizards which are actually rarer than the Kiwi!  again, i didn't know that!  and of course we got to see 2 Kiwi's which (as Luke described so well) look like arses with legs and a really long beak!  I thought they we're cute, a bit wierd looking but cute!  Shortly after that we came accross a spiders web containing a rather large spider which Luke took picture after picture after picture of, obviously trying to get the perfect pic...it ended up with the spider getting severely pissed off and it went for Luke, in fact it jumped straight at his balls... i've never seen him look so scared!  so let this be a lesson to you all, either spiders are a lot clever than you think and they know where to hurt a man or you just shouldn't piss them off!!  Now these we're described as big grass hoppers... they looked nothing like grass hoppers, they we're bigger, uglier and looked like they could do you some damage, weta's, i preffered the cute and cuddly kiwi's personally, even if they did look like a giant arse with legs!  Once the tour was over we made our way through the gift shops where we both got ourselves a mauri fish hook made out of bone, it is supposed to mean safe passage over land and especially water and i also bought some manuka wound care as it is supposed to do wonders for mozzie bites and as i am being bitten like crazy at the moment (apparently i'm tasty and Luke's not!) then i was going to try anything!...later that night i opend the bottle and my god did it go everywhere, apparently they like to cram a lot in in NZ, and apart from that it had been a good day...and then the mozzies started biting me again despite the manuka honey!  if i find a repellant that works i'll let you know but i imagine i'll be a millionaire then as well!