Taupo and Rotorua are smack bang in the middle of one of the world's most active geothermal regions.  In fact, when the wind is right you can smell rotten eggs (i.e. sulphur) from throughout Rotorua.  Great news for tourists as this means volcanoes, hot springs, boiling mud, sulphur pools and numerous thermal areas offering a vast palette of colours and lots of other-worldly sights.  We spent a good few days touring the best of them, visiting Craters of The Moon and Wai-o-tapu Geothermal Wonderland, plus a couple of relaxing hot springs. (We've now figured out how to post photos, so we've stuck in a couple of snaps).

With the sun now starting to get hotter with Summer round the corner, we wanted to get wet.  What better way than white water rafting.  We spent a day rafting down the Tongariro river - a beautifully clear mountain river starting on Mt Tongariro - covering around 60 rapids in all.  Great fun - we're definitely going to do this again if we can.  And yes we got very wet.

As we enter the last month of our travels we realise we haven't yet got up close and personal with NZ's most famous export.  Yep - sheep.  To fix the situation we paid a visit to Rotorua's world famous sheep show.  The show was actually very entertaining and is probably the first time I've ever seen 19 sheep line up and three sheep dogs jump from sheep to sheep on their backs.  Oh, and it's definitely the first time that Elle has milked a cow (on stage, in front of a large audience). 

To wrap up the week, with the sun still blazing, we spent today on the beach soaking up some rays and browning up our pasty white bodies.  Unfortunately the surf was definitely not up dude, so we had to postpone surfing lessons to another week...  Until next time...   Tom and Elle  x