A Rotton Adventure (with A Baker): ANA AND ANDY ROTORUA, BAY OF PLENTY, HAMILTON AND AUCKLAND 23 SEPTEMBER 2014

Rotorua

After a very wet drive from Taupo to Lake Rotorua we were welcomed by sunshine and a beautiful view over the lake. We arrived with time to have a quick scout around, introduce ourselves to the black swans and seek out a campsite for the evening. We camped up outside of town at a department for conservation site right on a lake front - happy days.

Black Swans - these are no relation to Natalie Portman, I don't think.

Brilliant, welcome to Lake Rotorua.

The next day we were up and ready for a days worth of touristy exploring, so we headed straight to Kuirau Park to check out the famous mud pools and geothermal activity. Rotorua is famous for its geothermal activity and more so for its smell - sulphur.

Steamy, no I'm not talking about the man in the photo!

Great place to see, but not to smell.

Next stop was our rafting experience. We'd booked to go with a company who were called 'characters' at the information centre, being British we immediately thought that the information guy was trying to polish a turd. He was right, but we were very wrong - such fun!

Rotton ready!

Right... so this is the top of a 7m waterfall, is it too late to change my mind?

I'll take that as a yes then, oh well better hold on.

Oh sh*t!

Where did we go?

Ah, there we are, no longer in the boat.

After being thrown around the river in a washing machine style we were all scooped up and placed back in the boat, phew!

The two crews. Sweet Bro', as they'd say in NZ.

We slowly recuperated from our whitewater rafting experience by having a warm coffee and cake :) Our boat had two guides in, one of whom was training and the other was monitoring her. This meant that we had volunteered ourselves to be in a boat which purposely capsized 3 times, as well as capsizing down the 7m fall. As well as being thrown out of the raft Andy also went through a rapid outside of the raft (by holding onto the side) and sat right at the front like a bust on a big ship! We had a great time, albeit very physical and scary at times!

Next day we were back on dry land and went for a sunny walk up Mount Rainbow and visited the local museum before heading further north.

Thermal pools at Mount Rainbow

Mid mount sweaty selfie

Andy being culturally sensitive

Ta-dah! Top of the world...

Mr Mount 2014

Rotorua town

Entrance to the museum, there's a thriving Maori culture in Rotorua

Andy visited the museum whilst I loitered in town with internet access

Once we'd ticked everything off in Rotorua then we hopped back into Jules Verne and headed north to Mount Maunganui - or the 'Mount' as the locals call it probably because it's impossible to pronounce. We arrived later in the evening just in time to pick up our rugby tickets and install ourselves at our campsite.

We really wanted to catch a game whilst in New Zealand and Andy had found a game to coincide with our whereabouts, so we watched the Bay of Plenty vs Northlands, with the Bay of Plenty being our 'home' team.

Do we blend in as locals? The guy behind us looks like Nick Hewer a la Apprentice.

Bay of Plenty in stripes and Northlands in blue

The winning team

No Bay of Plenty win this time around

After our evening of entertainment of watching the game with beer and rugby snacks we were up early the next day to walk up the Mount and explore the area a little more.

The view from the top of the Mount

We left the Mount and headed to Whangamata to explore the mining area and its walks. We had lunch before we set off and ended up going a little off track so our short walk turned into a 4hr hike, but was great fun and gave us an excuse to crack open more tim tams with a cuppa on our return.

Karangahake gorge in the sun

Great walk

Stunning scenery and great place to explore

We even needed to use the head torches- intrepid!

Reminder of where we were and how to spell it :)

Next stop was the Coromandel Penninsular where we drove to the area of Whitianga to visit Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.

Cathedral Cove beach

The cove

Sunny beachy coastline

Once we'd explored Cathedral Cove and the surrounding beaches we headed off to Hot Water Beach.

Hot Water Beach, so we take a shovel...

Start digging a hole...

Keep digging a hole...

Then sit and enjoy it! This is Andy's 'I'm enjoying myself in scolding hot water' face.

I went for a paddle

Hot Water Beach is called so because it genuinely has hot water underneath the sand.

Next stop was a short trip to Hamilton to visit Simon, Jackie and Theo Bush (for those unawares of Mr Bush he is a native Kiwi worked with me at Kingston University and moved back home to NZ in time for us to visit). We said a quick hello to Jackie and Theo before heading off to lunch with Simon (thanks for shouting us lunch - see there is such a thing as a free lunch). It was good to catch up with him and hear about his transition back to NZ life after spending years living and working in London.

Simon, Jackie and Theo - thanks for lunch and looking after us :)

Back on the road from our Hamilton pit stop to Auckland - our final stop. We had planned a 2 night stay in Auckland as it was our departure point for South America and where we had to drop our van. We spent the first day exploring and enjoying being back in a city and the second day making sure that we had all that we needed to tackle South America, including a last minute attempt to learn Spanish :)