Rotorua - Wellington

Before we left Rotorua and the wonderful (if oddly named) Funky Green Backpackers hostel, we thought it would be only right if we engaged in some gravity-based adrenaline pumping extreme activity that we'd likely never consider again. We ended up going for the "Swoop" - a 40m (120-ish ft) swing. The crane hoists you up, gravity brings you back down. It differs from a bungee in that instead of bouncing around vertically, you swing back and forth. It was great fun (after the initial terror wore off) but made me think I'd never be able to throw myself off a tower in true bungee fashion. Tracy did manage to undertake a freefall while safely on terra firma. Basically, the arrangement is you are positioned above a giant hairdrier and then they turn it on. She enjoyed it very much apparently.


You should have noticed (if you've been keeping up the the photos - if not, shame on you!) that we also managed to track down boiling mud, clouds of steam, odd green pools and the like. These geological oddities are part of the wai-o-tapu thermal park. We spent a morning meandering around wai-o-tapu and ended up smelling somewhat of sulphur. In Rotorua that's OK though because everyone else does too.

We were due to head for Mount Tongariro and the famous walk that passes over the top, but the weather, alas, has not been favourable and the top of the mountain was covered in fog and mist. This means that no guides are willing to go up - and if the guides won't go up, I'm not chancing it on my own thatnks. We'll try to catch the Tongariro crossing on our way back up if we have time.

We're now in Wellington - we just went to the last game of Tana Umaga, legendary "All Blacks" centre/winger. I only just realised (from reading the wiki article) that he was one of the infamous "spear tacklers" of Brian O'Driscoll in the 2005. Well, that was his last game before heading off to coach in France somewhere.

It's very windy here - we were getting blown about all over the place earlier which was especially harrowing when the rain was whipping in nearly horizontally. We'll be here for a few days before heading to the South Island.

Finally - I recently became the proud owner of a previously broken HP Photosmart M525 6-megapixel digital camera. Unfortunately I'm not really sure what to do with it. It doesn't have cables, memory or batteries. Any takers?