Day 5 at Rotorua
Travel Location: Rotorua,New-Zealand
An early rise, quick breakfast, followed by picking up Amy, and we were off- leaving the wonders of Waitomo behind us. Due to the car only having two doors, and the immense amount of baggage we had, all that could be seen in the back of the car was luggage, and two heads….just. Clare and Ruth rejoyced in the change of music- there was now a whole selection of new CD’s. Hurrah!! Snow patrol was beggining to become just a tad repetative.
Lack of sleep had caught up on Ruth, as was clearly shown when she thought the sun, was the moon…an easy mistake when wearing sunglasses 
A quick stop off at a dam, next to a pretty river and then more driving. The car rolled into rotarua in time for morning tea (coffee and cake for me!) and the information point was once again explored. Sadly we were too late to see any geisers explode however the Waimangu volcanic valley proved to be an amazing alternative.
The pictures from this area speak enough about the scenery
The 8k walk around the worlds “newest” geothermal system, created in 1886 had simply breath taking views. The “family” took it in turns to read out the information provided for 26 sites, which included iodine pools, fairy craterm, echo crater and frying pan lake. We even had time to stop off and chat to a geologist about his work, and why frying pan lake had a tide…answer- know one knows! Ben amused all with his irish accent. The pictures from this area speak enough about the scenery. Please view!
Taking the bus back to the beggining of the walk (we were too poor to cruise along in the boat) Ruth gave the group a quick guide to lake taupo and mauri culture (being an expert in this area) and a guide, who’d been listening in, even agreed she vaguely knew what she was talking about! Even if the word “like” was used at least 300 times,
Its like not my fault i like using the word like!
By 3.00pm the whole family was starving (yes, we were now a family with every member playing a different role) and chicken soup was wolfed down at the cafe. But there was no time to spare, as the car hurtled off to the luges in Rotorua. A cable car lift provided excellent views of the landscape while the luges runs brought loads of excitement and much deserved fun. Clare’s competative streak began to show throught, with nealry every race being won by “Dad” while the “son”, Ben decided to crash his cart. Luges can travel at quite a speed you know 
Unfortunately now everyone appreciated Ruth’s and Amy’s singing on the ski-lifs back to the start of the race tracks and then all too soon the family had finished 5 races each and it was time to go, being 5pm. A quick stop at pak n sav turned into an outing all of its own with the store being toured at least 5 times and a game of prod occuring. Grabbing some alcohol for a gift to our hosts we turned up Good Charlotte full blast in the car and hurtled towards River Rd.
Upon arriving the family was greeted with HOME COOKING and an awesome bbq! It was loverly to have proper food again after the “meals” which had been burnt so far. The night was enjoyed even more in the knowledge that none of our belogings would go missing! Irish snap was then played- until midnight! Oops. It had truley become an addictive game, and our chocolate supply dwindled fast. Eventually we all crawled to bed and had some much deserced rest.
