I got made to do kareoke, and there was lots of singing on the bus

So I've left Auckland again. I'm with a new group of people on the bus and will probably be with them until Wellington. There are still a few people from the bus up to the north but I'm making lots of new friends. There's a good mix of people on the bus, mainly English, a few Americans, Dutch and Belgians and a couple of Malaysians. Ages range from 19 (gap year travellers) to a very rowdy 30 year old.

On Wednesday morning, (it just took me and one of the guys from the trip a long time to figure out when exactly it was we left, yesterday feels like such a long time ago) we headed out of Auckland, stopping at Mt. Eden (a volcano crater in the city) for some scenic pictures and then heading on to Mercury Bay. On the way we stopped at a beach where you could supposedly dig hot pools in the sand. Some people dug, but couldn't find any hot pools. I just sunbathed on the beach. Some of the guys who went swimming got caught in the rip tide and had to be resuced by surfers. It was actually quite dangerous, but quite funny. When it got cloudy and a bit cold we left the beach and headed out to the town where we were staying. When we arrived we found out that there had been a big storm and there was no power in any of the buildings. They still had gas so they cooked us dinner and we ate by candle light. Once it got properly dark we made our way out to the only place in town still with power, the pub.

We had a few drinks to celebrate St.Patricks Day and then participated in the kareoke night which the locals got very, very in to. They took it very seriously. I was forced into contributing to the whole group doing a Grease medley. We also discovered that a lot of the locals were very good at salsa. Kind of weird. The power came back on at about 8.30pm so everything was fine.

We didn't make it back to the hostel too late so it wasn't too awful getting up at 7am this morning to get the bus. The New Zealand countryside and hills were so beautiful as the sun came up whilst we were driving. We stopped at an old gold mining gorge for a a quick walk. It involved walks across several suspended bridges and through some old abandoned caves and rain tracks. Very, very stunning with the river running through the gorge.

The lunch stop was at a town called Matamata where they filmed the Hobbition section of Lord of the Rings, we didn't to see the actual set but we all had photos by the Hobbition sign and there was a statue of Gollum.

This afternoon, after checking into our hostel in Rotorua we went lugeing. This is kind of like downhill go-karting on a concrete track through forests. It looks a lot like a mario cart game. We had 5 go's, and it was so much fun! Several times we all (about 25 of us) all raced down the simpler track and were overtaking and bumping each other the whole way down. It was awesome.

We actually got stranded there as the Kiwi experience bus broke down! We ended up getting on another bus back to the hostel and being late for this evenings activity. This was a evening in a traditional Maori village. I have to go because I'm going to run out of credit. I'll try and update again tomorrow, but it might be the day after before I get a chance.
xx