headed south of Auckland and that place was Parakai. Parakai was only around an hour outside of Auckland so we figured it would be a convenient place to stop and it also boasted a hot spa pool complex complete with water slides. En-route to Parakai we stopped off at the Kauri Museum, which we were hoping would give us some more insight to these fascinating trees but unfortunately it was more concerned with the logging of these magnificent trees so we didn’t find it too great. It was a fairly long drive but we knew we could rest our weary bones (bet you all feel sorry for us!) in lovely hot spa waters - how much better could life get! The campsite we had chosen included admission to the spa complex, the campsite was quite scruffy and so was the spa complex but hey the waters were lovely and hot and felt very relaxing on our already relaxed bodies! The water slides on the other hand were big, wooden and very old looking but absolutely great fun, the slides were exceptionally fast and we were running up the

steps for a very long time! Of course Rob had a little fall but nothing more than a little bump on his head appeared - it still amazes me how accident prone he is!!! After this we headed to the relaxation pool which was exactly that, the waters were as hot as a bath and it was great, just what you need after a hectic water slide!

After a good nights sleep and very feeling very refreshed we were off on the road again and today our final destination was Rotorua, but first we needed to call in at Auckland and pick up Rob’s hiking boots. En-route we stopped at Muriwai beach which was a black sand with a massive gannet colony, we gave the gannets a miss but it did seem quite strange walking on black sand! We drove into Auckland and around the city without a problem, they are such relaxed cities after all of the mayhem ones of India or Vietnam and Auckland was a breeze. Rob picked up his boots and the