Rotarua

Rotarua is an intriguing place. Home of the Zorb (those giant balls that you get inside and roll down a hill in) and also home of the world's highest raftable waterfall (we have done neither of these activities yet but hope to do them on our way back to Auckland). When we first arrived there, our driver took us to a big, boiling lake that would kill you within 7 seconds if you fell in it. He told us how he used to come as a child with his dad and boil eggs on the little pockets of water around the lake. There is steam coming out of the ground all over the town and natural mud pools and hot pools everywhere. We decided to stay in the YHA there as we had a discount card and after we had dropped off our stuff in the room, we met up with our Malaysian friend Lee and walked around the town with her, visiting the lakes, museum and park. We then went to Pak'n'save (NZ's cheapest supermarket, that is like an Ikea for food – a big warehouse with birds flying around inside). We bough a cooked chicken, potatoes and cauliflower and then went back to Lee's hostel where we cooked and ate together and she gave us some Cadbury's chocolate for pudding. (The hostel was run by a dj hippie guy who played loud dance music on his decks all night.).

The next day the Magic shuttle took us to a kind of natural marvels theme park in Rotarua where you can see all kind of wonders. The first thing we saw were boiling, bubbling mood pools and then we went to watch a geyser erupt. After this, we entered a park where there are red, blue, yellow and fluorescent green lakes. NZ is often referred to as the world under a microscope because it has so many natural wonders packed into it. At the airport on the way in, we had to go through strict controls to check we weren't carrying and organic matter in that would disrupt the ecosystems. One sign said 'NZ was undiscovered for x,00000 years, meaning it has some of the most unique ecosystems on earth (eg. 90% of the birds in NZ only exist in NZ), please help us to conserve this by not treading any foreign mud in on your shoes (or something along these lines). The woman looked at the bottom of my shoes to check I didn't have any Bolivian soil on there and luckily they were clean enough to go through. Anyway, back onto Rotarua. The park had lakes like those we had seen in Boliva (so we weren't THAT wowed by them) but they were pretty impressive, especially the fluorescent green one. There was also a big sulphur lake that blew clouds of sulphur over you and various multicoloured caves formed from exotic mineral reactions. After the park, we had to wait about an hour because the Magic bus had broken down somewhere. When it came, it took us to Taupo, where it stopped at Hukka falls so that we could get out and take photos. It was, without a doubt, the bluest, clearest natural water I have ever seen in my life! The falls were stunning and you could go on a speed boat on the river they ran into. The guide told us that no one has ever successfully rafted the falls and of those that canoe them, only 1 in 8 survive. After the falls, we were dropped off at our hostel, Urban retreat in the town centre of Taupo. Taupo is a gorgeous town by the lake where many New Zealanders spend Christmas in the sun. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we had booked ourselves into a private twin room as a Christmas treat back in July when we made the booking, so that was nice as I had forgotten all about it. So, here we are in Taupo for Christmas. It was a great choice because there are so many good things to do here and we have treated ourselves to a skydive and bungy jump (because Taupo is the cheapest place in NZ to do both). I absolutely loved the skydive as it is something I have wanted to do my whole life and it was even better than I expected. The bungy was an achievement for me as it has long been something I have said I will never do as it is too scary. However, it wasn't that bad, once I mustered the courage to throw myself off and it was the highest water touch bungy in NZ. I am really glad we chose one over water because it was so refreshing to be dunked. To round off a thrilling Christmas eve, we treated ourselves to a slap up Indian in the restaurant around the corner from our hostel. Lovely.

Photos: North Island