March 7th - 10th Rotorua

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Arrived in rotorua around late afternoon and as everyone had told me i stinks, the smell comes from the sulpher which rises up through the roads and pavement because the crust of the earth is so thin here. any way went for a walk in the evening and then had an early night.

the following day i had intended to go mountain biking but then the two places that hired out bikes were all booked out so i reserved one for the next day instead. i went for a walk around the government gardens where they have a small mueseam and some sulpher pits where you can see the mud bubbking and the sulpher rising through. in the evening i sat and had a few beers with 3 dutch guys who had been hitch hiking around the country and usually just camped wherever they could find a place, that was interesting as they had some good stories and one of them was travelling with his guitar so later on he played some music and we just sat and relaxed.

was up early the following day to go to the redwood forest for what is described as some of the worlds best mountain biking and they've held various world championship things here and it was really good the tracks are really well maintained and i never fell off to many times and along with around 5 hours of cycling and some pushing i was feeling paricularly knackered as it was the first proper exercise ive done since leaving england. in the evening i went to the bar below the hostel for some dinner (sea food chowder which was amazing) and got speaking to the 3 people beside me who had met the last night and ended up going out for a few drinks to an open mic night where me and two of the others joined another 2 lads who had just met and who had signed up to perform, obviously i was never going to miss a perfectly good oppertunity to make a fool of myself. we also roped in 2 girls to sing and 2 of the lads actuallly played the guitar anyway. im glad i did agree to play with them as i got the chance to play the worlds best instrument it was like a stool that you sat on and beat the sides and depending on where you hit it it made higher or lower pitched sounds (drum box i call it) we didnt really know what we were doing but the manager of the bar was impressed with us so my new zealand musical journey continued. after that we went on to a club i had every intention of not being allowed in as i had flip flops and shorts on. but they let me in and so i stayed til around 2:30 and then left.

surprisingly enough i felt a bit tender once again the next day on the bus to Mount Monganui.

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