To the smells...

After a bit of hassle with Europcar we finally had our car delivered to the City Central Hotel in Auckland....basically a cock up by the company in Australia meant that the car was actually at the airport and not at the depot in the city.Really helpful with 4 kids in tow. Anyway, about 2 hours later than planned we headed off for Rotorua, towards the centre of the North Island and where you need a peg for your nose!

A lunch stop at Hamilton in WORLEY PLACE(how cool is that!) and via Cambridge and after just over 3 hours we arrived at our accommodation in Ngongotaha, just outside Rotorua. We had rented a house called Waiteti Family Lodge for 3 nights. It's situation on the edge of Lake Rotorua was stunning as you will see from the pics. The garden actually went down to the lake which was beautiful. The house was lovely but very cold...they don't seem to have central heating here! We slept in our clothes on the first night as it was too chilly to get changed for bed!! Plenty of bedrooms and two sitting rooms. We stayed in one room and just heated that as the main lounge was quite big and the thought of lighting a fire was too much of a hassle!

Once we had dumped our stuff, we went straight out to the Skyline Skyrides, a fantastic place where you go up in a gondola and down on a luge

Now a luge is an overgrown tea tray, with handles to steer and a non-sophisticated braking system. I managed to sit on it, had a 10 second lesson on how to use it and whoos I was off down the hill on a concrete track. Help!!!! I am sure the route was very pretty, but concentrating on my tin plate was more important than views! I made it to the bottom just as it started to rain. Didnt bother putting kagools on as just seemed like a quick shower and we were just getting on to the chair lift to go back up. I was petrified! And then the heavens opened-torrential rains and hail stones hit us on the way up and we couldn't go anywhere! I couldnt look down and by the time we got to the top, we were drenched and frozen. However in true British spirit we went down a second time, tho this time the track was more like a river and brakes not too effective!
A definite highlight!