The rest of the North Island...

After a couple of days in National Park, mooching about round the volcanoes and chatting to our new mate Dave the road worker from East Anglia, we hitched a lift over to Turangi with a friendly but stern looking Croatian guy who was in the country 'on business'. We asked no questions.

After a quick stroll around Turangi, we set off for Taupo, on the shores of Lake Taupo, NZ's largest lake and a volcano in disguise. A really, really big one. We resisted the bargain bungee jumping and sky diving on offer, in favour of a stroll up to the beautiful Huka Falls (enough water flows over this bad boy in one second to fill 2 Olympic-size swimming pools, waterfall-based pub trivia fans) and a burger in an old wartime DC3 plane parked handily next door to the local Maccy D's.

We then headed to Rotorua, home of lots of geothermal hot springs and mudpools, lots of Maori culture, and one of the smelliest places on Earth. Here, we had a 'first' for the both of us - we stayed in a 'themed' hostel - Cactus Jacks. We stayed in the 'barbers', next to to 'Madame Fifi's Bordello'. Classy.

Here's a couple of pictures taken from our stroll around Rotorua on the first day. As you can see, it's a really nice place. Apart from the smell.

On our next day there, we visited the 'Geothermal Wonderland' that is Wai-O-Tapu. Another monumentally stinking place, but at the same time absolutely fantastic, especially to geology geeks like me. Even Clare was impressed!

The next day we headed up to the Gondola ride with a couple of guys we'd met in our hostel - a Chinese girl known to us as 'E' (probably grossly mis-spelled by me), and Jason, a Californian. Here's us in our helmets before the first run of the day (safety first, you know!) and a picture of the track.

We had a lot of fun up there and a few mishaps, E cut her finger, Jason was thrown completely out of his luge kart, and Clare's bag burned a hole in itself, spilling the contents out onto the track. I'm pleased to say there was no real harm done!

The day after, we headed to Hamilton for an overnighter before heading back to Auckland, where we are now, until our flight tomorrow to Bangkok. We're both really looking forward to some warm weather!

More from Thailand!

-Si