Last Post in the land of the kiwi!!

We have arrived back in Auckland, which means only one thing.. we are leaving the country tomorrow and arriving back at Heathrow sometime in the next 48 hours WOOHOO. Not that we really want to leave but we're so excited to see everyone and the no money situation kindof sucks really.
So since Rachel last posted we have been travelling around the North Island, we've only had 2 bus drivers on this island, one of which we had for over a week and he was absolutely amazing; "Sandra" as we named him as he kept changing his name everyday to keep us on our toes, which really confused a lot of dim people on our bus, bless.
We've visited quite a few film locations now on our travels, quite a few from Lord of the Rings of course and also a place called Cathedral cove which is a beach that they used to film a scene in Narnia's Prince Caspian.
Both of us absolutely loved this little placed called 'Waitomo' which has loads of really cool caves both above and below ground. We decided this was the only activety we would limit our budget to as this has been the thing I really wanted to do in NZ before we left home. We had to go for the cheaper option to enter the caves which was a 2 hour walk (we could have gone black water rafting but that was waaaayyy out of the budget!) But the walk was absolutely amazing! You go really deep under ground, I felt a bit like i was in the Mines of Moria but Rachel had no clue what I meant so I am forcing her to watch LOTR when we get home. You get to see glow worms and there are so many stalagmites and 'tites, Rach put it well: "It's like an absolutely amazing Wookey Hole without the tacky witch!"
Probably the most bizzarre place we have visited is a place called Rotorua which absolutely reeks of egg and has steam coming up through the ground. It's a really big hotspot for underground thermal activity, we visited a place called Te Puia where a lovely Maori took us round bubbling mud pools and geysers and taught us about Maori culture.
Oh and now we can safely say we have sailed on top of a volcanoe. No I'm not confused in the slightest here we actually have. Lake Taupo has a giant volcanoe under it and we have sailed on top of it to go and see Maori carvings and basically get absolutely soaked! It is an active volcanoe by the way and if it blew to it's full potential it would wipe out all of humanity... I almost had a heart attack this morning waking up in Taupo and looking out of the hostel window to see what looked like the lake covered in smoke. Have no fear it was only the creepy low cloud that seems to skulk around the country but I was almost considering flying out of Taupo there and then. What a loser!
We had a lovely relaxing time in a place called River Valley which literally is right smack bang in the middle of a valley. We went in the sauna that the y have there which was so nice but the public outdoor shower experience in the freezing night afterwards was not so good!
We've also been to the capital but literally only to sleep there. Oh and visit the new world supermarket to but broccolli yay!
I can't remember if we'd already been or we're just going when Rach last posted but we've also been to Paihia in the bay of islands which was very pretty but not an awful lot to do there unless you empty the contents of your wallet.
So now we're in Auckland for the 3rd time, it's not that nice here and even the rest of New Zealand agrees that it's not that great.
Flying home tomorrow and I don't think it's even sunk in, but not looking forward to the very long plane journey but WE'RE COMING HOME!

sweet as.