We hired a camper van in Auckland to travel in for the next couple of weeks. Its not massive, but its got all the basics, plus its got a flashy graffiti spray paint job. Your pretty limited to how you can get around here, apart from the backpackers bus, which is expensive and you have to stay in hostels every night, which would no doubt force me to have a few shandy`s more often than not, peer pressure and all that... and we have bigger plans for our cash than to flush it down the can. We are going back to basics on food too, as its no longer a couple of quid to eat out. Had a pan of economy beans for dinner tonight, a sight contrast to the steaks in Argentina, nice.

But it will be worth it, plenty to do here and it all costs a fortune! Booked in to do a 15,000ft sky dive tomorrow over lake Taupo on the north island. Here is one of the few places in the world you can do a jump that high, the free fall is over a minute flying towards the earth! They give you a DVD (at a cost, of course) of the whole dive and photos too, so i will stick them on the site when i get a chance so you laugh at my worried face.

Jumping back; our first stop while heading down south with the van was at Rotorua, apparently a popular stop on the backpacking trail. Its main attraction is the towns geothermal activity, like hot springs, geezers and lots of steam popping up all over the place out the ground. Only downside is the place stinks. The ground and all the water is full of sulfur, making the town small like a combination of eggs and eggey farts. We decided not to do a tour of the main park with a lot of the main geothermal stuff as we saw a lot of that on our jeep tour of the salt flats in Bolivia.

What we did do though was a massive luge run at the Sky Line place. Its like a tobaggon, but on a concrete track. Sounds like kids stuff, and thats what we thought until we were on it. You go fast. The track was pretty challenging, with banked corners and plenty of opportunity to come off, or smash in to your mates... There was also a photo taken at the end of you going down, although mine was against the rules, so it was deleted. Spoil sports.