Stage 20

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The lot of us took a trip down to Rotorua for a few days, the place is surrounded by hot springs which is all very picturesqe but they give off this yucky egg smell, apparently it's sulfur?? We all had a go at this kiwi pass time called Zorbing, basically you climb inside a giant beach ball. They then stick a little water in with you and push you off down a hill, you get thrown about like a cat in a washing machine but was really good fun although it cost about 20 quid for 20 seconds. In the evening we went to this Maori culture show, where you get told a bit on how they got to NZ and then settled. You get there by coach and each coach has to have a tribal chief that on arrival has to be greeted in the traditional way by the Maori chief. It sounds easy but while they're doing a Haka to greet you, your not allowed to giggle or smile. This is seen as a big insult and very difficult not to do when there pulling faces and poking there tongue out, so I didn't envy the guy from our bus, because if it was me I think I would've got a smack in the face. Anyway after the pleasantries we were shown more cultural stuff followed by a show where they sang and danced with more light hearted Haka's. After that we given a meal that was cooked in a traditional Maori Hangi, which is basically an underground oven that they dig out and then cover with white hot rocks to cook the food. All in all it was a really good evening and definately Australia-0 New Zealand-1 when it comes to indegenus cultures! On the way home we stopped at the Wairora River to go White Water Rafting, we were lucky because this river is rated the best in NZ but they only open the dam that creates the rapids 26 days a year. It rained all morning but it didn't matter as we were destined to get soaked anyway, me and Shane managed to stay in the boat but unfortunately Justin wasn't so lucky. The ride down took about an hour with a few rest stops on the way and was great fun. After that we stopped at a pub for dinner, where I managed to catch the replay of Liverpool beating Boro which rounded off a really good weekend. Now back to Auckland for a few days of doing bugger all and hopefully not spending any money.

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Photos

Zorbing
At the bottom

The Haka
Ringa pakia, a, ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora...

White water rafting
I'm 2nd left, Shane's behind the instructor and that's Jutty's upside down legs at the back!