We camped at a park near the caves last night, and woke up to a nice sunny day. We then drove 200km into the centre of Auckland where trying to park a camper van turned out to be a £^$*ing nightmare.!

The reason for this, was that British Airways have passed the buck, and have put the blame for excess baggage charges we had to pay in Bangkok (300 quid!) in the hands of Qantas. After visiting their offices in central Auckland and speaking to them… I disagree. British Airways itinerary is wrong, and they know its wrong because they have recently added a sentence to the itinerary stating that other airlines determine my baggage allowance also…. Now this was not on my itinerary that I printed out before we left the UK, and I am now starting to smell something rotten in this whole fiasco.

The only evidence I have, is our itinerary which I printed from BA’s website before we left the UK, and I guess I had better guard it with my life because when tomorrow comes and we have to board a flight to Melbourne, we could potentially be having to fork out £2500 for excess baggage charges…. Oh joy!! Legal battle when I come back then…..

Anyway, now parked on the outskirts of Auckland, having a beer and trying to calm down!

Next stop Melbourne!

SD

Well…. what a dissapointment Zorbing turned out to be!!!

We turned up to a very small hill with the zorbs at the top, and us being the “life on the edge” kinda folk… we turned our noses up and moved on West.

We drove to a place called Waitomo Caves, a massive network of caves… totally massive!

In parts of the Waitomo Caves, they have something called Black Water Rafting. Basically, you stick a helmet on your head, go into the cave, wade into FREEZING water, jump on a rubber tube, and generally freeze your ass off until 3 hours of climbing, walking and tubing…… you finally appear at an exit for the cave.

I must say it was an experience. The feeling of claustrophobia, the freezing water… we still wonder if we enjoyed it!! I haven’t been that cold in years.! Before we entered the cave, they tested our ability to deal with the cold water by making us jump into a river that feeds into the cave. It was so cold that one guy stopped breathing for 20 seconds or so… Bit of a scary moment…!

Anyway we survived it… cold and shivering we retired to our camper.

Well, we woke up to bright sunshine (and stinky eggy smell) in Rotorua, and decided to grab a chopper to White Island. A very unique place that sits on the fault line of 2 tectonic plates. We were the only ones on the island, which is New Zealand’s only active marine volcano.

It sits 50km off the shore, and when we landed, it was like being on another planet… just weird.. Got some fantastic footage!! Just incredible…

After a hour of walking in and around the crater of the volcano, our pilot took us to Mount Tanawera which erupted in 1886 killing 140 people. Also pretty spectacular.

We then went from there to the Skyline, and zoomed down “the luge” 3 times… much fun had.

Now, we are camping again for the evening before trying to get a go of Zorbing tomorrow… and moving on!

SD