We arrived into Rotorua and were thankful to see a decent sized city with locals who obviously knew what a dentist was.
We did what we normally did which was park up somewhere in the centre close to food and pubs and then went for a walk. Rotorua is a nice place but seen as we arrived at the start of the week there was not much alive at night.
The next day we decided to go get some stuff booked so we we paid for some white water rafting on a grade 5 river (the most extreme). Following that we thought we would make the most out of the day and went for a drive, we ended up on a mountain in little luge karts hurtling it down the mountain side. It was awesome fun, they had different level tracks but all of them had little kids on them - we were not sure if you got points for hitting them so we went round them just to be safe. After a good few laps we decided to go mountain biking. Normally mountain biking in the UK is an easy trail through the woods with a couple of bumps and your odd steep climb but that felt like riding on a flat road compared to what we had infront of us. These tracks were mental trails for serious bikers and the forest was massive, so big that we nearlly got lost and after riding for several hours we arrived 2 minutes before the bike hire place was about to shut. Whilst nursing sore arses (from the mountain biking) we decided to go for a Pizza Hut for some dirty pizza, but the woman never charged us straight away. Normally we would pay but seen as we are now backpackers we thought lets see what we can get away with so as the girl that served us walked to the kitchen we calmy stood up, thanked the manager and walked out. Were thinking of robbing a bank next.
The following day was white water rafting day and we were ready to go. As we were picking everyone up on the bus a big group of Irish people got on - the mood on the bus livened up. As we got kitted up and then drove to the river we had a crash coarse in what was about to happen and emergency procedures. Our guide was a fella called Stevie - top guy! He was the only one which made the group (there was 3) jump in the river and then climb into the raft. As we set of down the rapids we were having a great time, it was simply awesome. As we got to a quiet bit Stevie said we could get out and have a swim if we wanted but we had to do it quickly so we jumped in before he could even finish his sentence. However after we all got in and came around the corner we realised that there was not enough time for us to get back into the raft - but Stevie knew that - the bastard. He made out as if we had to scramble to the boat (these are fast flowing waters bear in mind)and cling on the our legs underneath. After we went crashing down some rapids he revealed his little joke before me and matt rearranged his face, but he got serious about getting us in as the 7 meter waterfall approached. As we waited above it we realised how high it was and wondering what the hell we were doing, then all we heard was "PADDLE" - we were reluctant and comfortable. As we dropped vertically you could see the other groups - not that we were paying attention to that as there was crashing white water below us about to devour our raft - which it did. As we hit the water we got pulled under by the current completly submerging our raft and pushing it into the shape of a taco under water. We were the only raft to do this and stevie commented that we were lucky not to flip and come up so soon - we told him to keep his comments to himself. further on stevie allowed me (pete) to jump into the front as he pushed the raft into a rapid - an interesting experience.
Once this was all over we met Tom and Dave - two guys who were doing the same trip as us but on a shorter time frame - we crossed paths again later in our journey.
Following the adventures we went for a curry and some deserved beer as the next day we were off to Taupo.
