North Island

We spent the weekend in Wellington and went to a house party with Alex on the Friday. On Saturday we meet up with Amit and went in search of a nice bar in Wellington after watching the all blacks beat Canada.
Sunday morning we left Wellington and drove to Napier. Its a town full of art deco. All the buildings were repainted every few years to keep it looking good. It was a great little town. We stayed at an art deco hostel which was really nice. Next day we drove to Rotoura, on the way we stop at a creak and went for a swim in the warm water which is heated by the gases escaping from the volcano. Rotoura smells of sulphur which smells like rotten egg.
Next day we spent at a Maori village, learning about mud baths and the geysers plus how the Maori use this to help them live. In the evening we went to the local spa centre which was really nice relaxing in the hot spas while watching the stars.
Next day we drove down to Taupo hoping to do the Tongorrio crossing but it was close due to bad whether. So we decide to climb one of the small mountains by the lake. It took two hours to get to the top and at the top it was all clouds you couldn’t see anything. It was a really muddy path up and down was very slipy. Afterwards we reward ourselves with a visit to the hot springs and got a private mineral bath which was really nice and warm.
We then drove back to Wellington as I had a plane to catch in few days to LA on Monday