Extreme Week!

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Hello all!

This week we decided it was time to get really adventurous! We began by leaving Auckland and heading South (after eventually getting a rental car during a busy long weekend) towards a surfing town called Raglan. We spent the afternoon in Raglan, just taking in the sights, but there was nowhere availible to stay unfortunately ... so we headed further south towards Waitomo.

Waitomo is famous for its cave system underneath the town ... which is about all there is there anyways! But that morning, we went for a short trip to see some Kiwis, which were really cute and fluffy. There were also some other really fantastic birds and reptiles to be seen there. After this, we checked out a rabbit sheering demo, which looked a bit scary but turned out to be harmless and free! From there, we went back to Waitomo and decided it was time to go black water rafting -- think white water rafting but on a tube in an underground cave!! There we saw all sorts of awesome glow worms (wikipedia it, its nice!)

After the caves we went a bit further south to a place called Taupo, on Lake Taupo (the largest freshwater lake in Oceania). We didnt get to do much there because it was a National holiday this Monday, so we headed North to a place called Rotorua.

... this is where the fun REALLY began. We started the morning by doing something called Zorbing, which is where you get placed in a huge plastic ball with water in it and get pushed down a big hill - it was SUPER fun. After that, we went on a jetboat, which is a boat that goes from 0- 60 miles in 4 seconds! WOO HOO ... it was really fast, and Karen thought she might puke, while Joel continually yelled "FASTERRRR!" The best part of our day was the Swoop however, where we got taken up about 40 metres in the air and dropped down in a swinging motion (think Wonderland here). It was really good fun, and this time Karen was yelling "FASTERRR!"

Following this, we checked out the town of Rotorua ... which was stinky because of all the sulphur, but really cool because of all the hotsprings!

On a side note, driving on the other side of the road and car was absolutely terrifying and awesome. We also ran into a small stampede of cows at one point.

We're back in Auckland now, heading to Australia tomorrow.

please note that none of the photos are in the right order!
:-)

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Comments

[brad lipskie]

Lots of questions....
....Superb pictures guyz!! I will have lots of questions when you return. Zorbing looks like a lot of fun. I may get too dizzy if I was doing this one but you guys must have had a "ball" with this one. (Pun intended). Question for you: Are you guys keeping these pictures somewhere or should we be printing them off so that you have them when you return? Off to Australia for one month next, eh!! So lucky and you look to be having so much fun according to these pictures. All for now. -luv,pa