Rotorua

Started the day well with pancakes and damn fine coffee. Then after some consideration decided to first head to Tepui. This was a national park full of bubbling steaming mud baths, a couple of kiwis and a big geyser. The tour guide gave us an overview of Maori culture and history and we also got a performance of a collection of Maori dances and songs. Fantastic place that looked like you could film the set of a whole series of Star Trek in it and all the cool colours: bright pinks and yellows in the rocks and turquoise and ash white lakes with bubbling grey mud made it totally unique.

After a bit of lunch we hired some bikes and headed to the Redwood Forest. As we cycled up an endless hill and I felt I was going to be reacquainted with my lunch from exhaustion, I wondered if I needed to face the fact that my instance of cycling being for me was misguided as I always end up near dead with complete prostration. This all changed though when we hit the tracks. It was an adrenal rush of twists, turns bumps and splashes that was like a roller coaster in a forest. It had us laughing all the way. The only worrying part was when we had being going for about a half hour on a track and hadn't reached an end. Thoughts of the plot of Blair Witch Project started to flash through my mind till finally we emerged back on the road. We both pledged to take up mountain biking when we got home (but the bruising from the saddle has since made me reconsider).

Afterwards we went to the local lake and found about ten black swans, what are the chances!

After a soothing hot pool dip in the hostel we hit the town for grub and pub. Got a nice meal and found a good blues rock band but finished the night in a late bar full of drunken twenty year olds from the adjacent hostel. This made us feel very old but glad we'd booked the quiet hostel down the road.

Rotorua was totally safe and quiet but the fact that the police station was massive and that some pubs had signs saying no gang paraphernalia made me think there was a side to the town we were (gladly) missing out on.