Our bus ride from Auckland was easy, only 1.5 hours. The driver was a good laugh, he was cracking jokes the whole way and he was also pretty clued up on Rotorua as he lived there. He even showed us his house, and when we arrived we were greeted by his wife waving at us. The smell hit us when we got off the bus, due to the sulphur from the natural springs that are scattered all over the place, people's back yards, middle of the park even the golf course- there's no dodging them. This is New Zealand's most volcanic town, so this was to be expected. On our first day we had a look around, ate and generally relaxed. This was a real sleepy town, which was rubbing off on us (or perhaps we
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