Rotorua

We left Aukland for the second time and drove south to Rotorua, the most geo-thermic place ion New Zealand.

The first night we went to a Maori village for dinner and entertainment which started with the warriors challenge.

The highlight of the evening was the return coach trip to the hotel which ended with a rousing rendition of ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes’ whilst going round a roundabout at least 8 times accompanied by another coach, it was obviously a regular occurrence since other traffic just waited until we had finished.

Next morning we went up the Gondola Skylift for breakfast, you could also have a free luge go as well, we declined.

Next was a trip to a Thermal Park, you could smell it a mile away, apparently Phil the Greek said during a Royal Visit that it was the only place you could break wind without anyone noticing.

We saw the Lady Knox geyser which erupts at 10:30 every day when fed with soap flakes and then a Walk round the Park with a lot of different ponds and rock structures and a walk a long way over a pond on the way back.

Going back to the hotel we passed a hot spring where the water was a permanent 100 degrees centigrade, no good for swimming.

In the Afternoon we went on a trip over three lakes on a DUKW (2^nd World War road and sea going vehicle) now known universally as Ducks, we were even given a Quacker to blow.

Immediately after the first lake we ground to sudden halt, out of fuel, if it had happened only 3 mins earlier we would have been in the lake, now that would have been fun. Iit took over an hour to get going again, at least we got a 50% refund. We all started thinking of appropriate jokes, Dead Duck totally quackered and quacked up were some of them.

Next morning on the way to Wellington we stopped at the Huka Falls, which seem more like rapids to me, you could take a ride down them on a Jetboat.