Out of Waitomo and on the road to Rotorua, the most of the way Steve and Ash and Jamie were telling me how good their caving tour at Waitomo was. Called “Haggis Honking Holes” it involved quite a bit of abseiling, crawling through mighty tight spots, and a large climb out again. Jamie said he’d never seen anyone sweat as much as Steve on his climb out, but Steve was raving about it as the trip highlight for ages.

Rotorua smells. It literally does smell of sulphur, and quite badly across most of the town . You do soon get used to it though, especially when you’re shopping for copious amounts of alcohol like we were just before arriving at what would be home for a couple of nights.
The accommodation was Alpin Resort (no ‘e’ in Alpin) and was quite nice. We shared four to a self-contained room, the highlight of which was the hot spring tub out the back. It didn’t take us long that night before we had nine of us in there, trying to break the record (of 9). Desperate for someone to join us we all eyed off Jamie who was sitting on a deck chair refusing to come in. Luckily for him we didn’t force the issue, choosing instead to both to grumble about it later and get him to photograph us in there. Funny thing is the only photo I have is when someone (who?) was out of the tub looking for someone else to join us! Help me out guys - anyone else got a photo with 9 of us in there???