After spending a lovely evening and sunny day with family friends in Auckland who took me on a mini tour of Auckland which included a stunning black sparkly volcanic beach (Auckland is the land of volcanoes and is overdue for an eruption) & a substantially large colony of majestic Gannets. Of course the smell wasn't great but it was absolutely worth enduring it to watch these beautiful birds.
I then hopped back onto the Magic Bus the following morning & headed back down to Rotorua via the Waitomo caves and spectaculary beautiful scenery with Young Joe Young, who was a most amusing older guide from Oz who kept us entertained all the way down to Rotorua. Once there we had the pleasure of spending the evening doing a Maori Cultural evening where we got to witness how it would have been for visitors coming to a Maori village & being greeted & intimidated by the Maori warriors. They also showed us various practices that they used back in those days such as flax weaving, tatooing etc, performed a Maori concert for us and fed us the most delicious tasting food. This is cooked in a hangi which is the traditional Maori method of cooking food using super heated rocks buried in the ground in a pit oven. Modernised hangi methods are still used today and are often saved for special occasions such as 21st's and funerals due to the large amount of time and preparation work involved. Needless to say the flavour of the food was just nyummy and we had two gorgeous Maori men to feast our eyes on while we were at it.
On our way out of Rotorua the following day heading down to Lake Taupo we stopped off to see the Lady Knox Geyser erupting at 10.15am (a little assistance is given to ensure that it happens at the same time every day) & we also had a couple of hours in the very smelly but fantastic Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. This Wonderland of stunning geothermal activity with unique features including the world famous champagne pool, geysers, bubbling mud, steaming ground, expansive vistas, huge volcanic craters and sinter terrace formations was truly worth seeing to experience what this incredible earth of ours is capable of.
