Mud, Mud, Glorias Mud

---

Auckland

Well we have now been in kiwi land for a week and are loving it. We started of in Auckland staying with our friend Liz and her parents (she has recently had a baby and is visiting her parents in Auckland) they stay out of town in a beautiful suburb which is a ferry or bus ride into town.

Day 1
Our first day was spent after an exhausting 14 hr flight from Santiago, with Liz and her baby on a beautiful island called davenport. Unfortunately after a gorgeous lunch of sushi, Liz and baby had to go home. We however spent a few hours downtown shopping for my new camera (i am so excited that i have a dslr again) and and we went up sky tower, the highest building in NZ.

Day 2
The next day the weather was not great as when Liz, baby and i stepped out for a mourning jog the heavens opened up. This scuppered our plans to go to Wahikiki island, so instead Steve and i spent the day at the amazing Auckland museum and fantastic aquarium. Our evening was spent with Liz and her mom and some great food and wine.

The Bay of Islands

On day 3 we started our road trip, we were originally going to get a bus ticket, but did the math and hiring a car was a much cheaper and better plan for us. Our first destination was paihia in the bay of islands. We only got there around 3pm, due to going to the supermarket and rd works. Paihia is surrounded by the ocean, so our first excursion was a local boat to Russel, a magnificent island about 10 min away. We walked to a beautiful view point on the island where we could see both islands. The next day we decided to spurge and do a sailing boat trip, it was fantastic, although it was not warm enough to snorkel, we stopped at a island and all got turns to help steering the boat and putting up sails etc. The day was a great day out and we were both exhausted from a day at the sea. The next day we went first thing in the morning to waitangi, a place where the Maori treaty was signed and did a really interesting tour of the history of the Maori's. After that we went to the amazing waipoua kauri forest and say 2000 yr old trees. We then made our way back to Auckland's for 1 more night at the best hostel in the world Liz's parents. After a wonderful shower and clean laundry we were set again for the rd.

Rotorua

Our destination was rotorua, we arrived at midday and went straight to te piau another Maori village which had an natural exploding geyser. We had an interesting tour and show. Rotorua is famous for hot natural sulfur pools, so the afternoon was spent going to the park where the had free pools, where u could dip you feet into what felt like boiling hot water. This morning we treated ourselves to a mud bath. We went to one of the spas and Steve and i had a hot thermal bath with mud inside, which we stayed in for 20 min, it was def an interesting experience. Kinda like the dead sea, but very different.

[h2Lake Taupo/Napier
We then drove to lake taupo and spent the afternoon walking around, tonight we r in Hastings.

We r loving the fact that people r really friendly, speak English and we can buy what ever we want at the supermarket, but it is more expensive than we thought, but hey we r in a first world country. That is all for now

---