From the sublime...

Firstly apologies for the lack of posting, this is due to the severe lack of Wi-Fi in NZ (and the fact we are so busy!) After a rash, last minute change of plans we spent a day at Mount Maunganui in the Bay of Plenty and decided to try our hand at body boarding in the incredible surf the area has to offer and we were not disappointed! We spent a whole morning riding, being submerged in, bailing out of ,and just generally loving the waves and by the end getting pretty good! And after a nice, but very hot, stroll to the top of the Mount, we decided Rotorua was beckoning and jumped back in Sonny.

On arrival in smelly Rotorua, we got into our hostel ‘Crash Palace’ and decided to book the uber day of White Water Rafting followed by the Tamaki Maori Experience for the next day, not for the faint hearted….

We opted for the hour long Kaikura River, Class 5 rafting that included a 7m waterfall drop, the highest in the rafting world! On our boat was a girl from Derby who got feet and metres confused and was suddenly very, very nervous. During the safety briefing they said the drop could go three ways…1) We complete it with no problems and celebrate accordingly. Happy. 2) We flip the raft and end upside down (no celebrations for that one), with 1 in 6 ending like this! 3) Very similar to 1 except upon celebration we find we are missing a member in the bottom of the waterfall as they have decided to go economy class! Luckily enough option 1 was taken and the rafting was one of the best activities undertaken so far, with adrenaline to burn. We were even allowed to do 2 of the rapids out of the boat, on our gluteus maximous’ which added an extra bit to an incredible experience! Sweet as!
Part two of uber day was a trip back in time to the Tamaki Village to experience some Maori culture. On the bus/Waka jouney there Steve volunteered himself to be the ‘chief’ of our tribe with various duties. The first of which (pictured) was to greet the tribe so they could assess if we meant any harm before letting us into the village for a wander around (Steve: This is meant to be intimidating, and staring down a fat Maori after he’s jumped about with his spear in front of you certainly is!!). Next up was a Maori show with various songs, poi, and ending in the formidable Haka, pretty cool. Followed as a Maori-style ‘all you can eat’ dinner of various meat incl NZ lamb and fresh fish, cooked in an earthen oven, which we enjoyed a lot of! The evening finished with a sing-song, Maori speech and a ‘Haka’ performed by the 4 chiefs of the tribes, incl Steve. Definitely had to be seen to be believed! Our crazy bus driver then induced a karaoke style singalong on the bus home where Steve did ‘Yellow Submarine’ and I did ‘Swing Low’ all whilst going around roundabouts multiple times! Pretty good day eh?!

Feeling Rotorua’d out, in particular the constant rotten egg smell, we headed down to Taupo for night 2 in the car, ready for our 15,000ft Skydive….