Oh ok. One more.

Just had to relate this story from last night, as it had us in stitches.

We were sat outside enjoying our dinner with a glass of wine, whilst watching the sunset over the estuary.

Also staying at the farm is a German family with three young children. The eldest (about 5) was playing fetch with Cocoa (please throw my stick) the border collie. This went on for quite a long time and after a while we started to wonder who would tire first... The obsessive collie who always wants to plan fetch, or the 5 year old, who never gets bored of doing the same thing.

The only losers here were going to be the lawn, which was getting worn away, and the yucca plant, which was a popular target for the stick.

Eventually, after we'd finished our meal and most of the wine (bear in mind that the game had been going on all the time we were cooking too), Cocoa decided that she was too tired to chase the stick any more.

This caused much consternation and shouting from the 5yo German (which was in itself very funny), as he commanded Cocoa to fetch the stick. If only he'd realised that she didn't speak german.

To be fair, Cocoa wasn't helping because whenever Hans (as we will call him) picked up the stick, she got all excited as though she was going to chase it, then ignored it when it was thrown.

This went on for a while, and then things got even better. Hans decided that the game was over, and the sticks should be put away (Hans being a very well behaved child). So he started collecting the sticks and putting them on a small table. However, every time he went off to get another stick, Cocoa would nip round him, get a stick off the table and put it on the ground by Hans' feet and beg for it to be thrown. This made Hans very angry indeed as the stick now had to be put back on the table.

The game now turned into some hybrid of 'fetch' and 'capture the flag', that had Hannah and I practically rolling off the deck with laughing so much.

The longer it went on, the more angry and frustrated Hans got, because the only way to finish the game was to put all of the sticks on the table, and Cocoa was having none of it.

At this point, it was getting cold, so we left them to it...

Nightingale Falls - The final chapter

The last couple of days before we fly home have been spent at the Nightingale Falls farm retreat. Getting here was a bit interesting, as it involved ringing ahead and telling the owners when you were leaving the nearest town (Thames) so they could meet you at the gate. It was a 10k gravel road to their gate, and another km of steep dirt track to the house. Just in case Apex car rentals ever read this blog, I should add that we of course walked the whole distance from Thames.

Once we got here, we found ourselves in a rather idyllic spot. See photos of the view from the front of the house. The farm even had 3 friendly dogs, a border collie with a limp (that still wanted her stick throwing please... some things never change), a rather ugly English bulldog (apologies to any bulldog fans out there), and a Jack Russell who insisted on coming for a walk with us (in reality it would be more accurate to say that he took us for the walk). We were glad that we had him with us as the supplied map, whilst entertaining, was not up to OS standards.

And tomorrow we drive to the airport, via the GOLDMINE.

ps if you still haven't got the competition question, there is a hidden clue in this post somewhere.

Hahei (pronounced Hay-He)

The last couple of days have been spent relaxing in the tiny beach-side town of Hahei, which is close to the famous Cathedral Cove. This is a large arch that gives access to a nice beach at low tide. It is all very pretty and (until this morning at least) nice and sunny. Yesterday we also went on one of those inflatable speed boats around some of the islands and also through some off-shore arches that appeared to be almost, but not quite, as big as the boat.

Also of interest to some is that the boat launched from Cook Beach (!), as this is where Cook landed to resupply on one of his visits.

Hannah also found a friendly kitten, which had the most ridiculously fluffy tail. It essentially had a cat:tail ratio of about 1!

Only a couple of days left :-(

A competition

To spice things up, who can guess what these historic relics once related to.

The winner gets a chocolate fish!

(chocolate fish are a strange new zealand thing, all will be explained if you win!)

Luge!

Today we relived Hannah's childhood trip to NZ with a ride on the Rotorua Luge. 5 rides in fact, in the pouring rain...

We brought our gore-tex coats and trousers half-way round the world, and carried them up pretty much every mountain that we've seen in the last 7 weeks. So do you think that we had them when the heavens opened on a city-centre tourist attraction..? Surprisingly Yes! ;-) So we were by far the driest people out there. This included the people who'd bought the obligatory tourist ponchos which turn into wind-socks at 15 kmph!

Not that there were many brave souls, which made it all the better. No slow people to get in the way of our racing ;-) Also, the rain made the brakes pretty dodgy, so it was getting more and more exciting.

So what is the Luge? we hear you ask... Imagine a child's sledge with wheels steering and brakes (well brakes in the dry perhaps). Then launch it down a concrete roadway complete with chicanes, banked corners and helpful advice to slow down (how?!)

Speeds of 30 kmph felt rather fast at 2 inches off the floor. No photos I'm afraid as it was too wet.

To complete the adrenaline rush, we went on the skyswing, where you are strapped into an seat and winched back to a height of 50m and then dropped by pulling your own cord after the countdown "three - tw.. AARRRGH!" (Hannah decided that we'd been hanging around long enough - hopefully she will never get a job at Cape Canaveral).

Total power over nature

Not much going on today but we did head over to see a river that the Kiwis are able to turn on and off at will.

It's all to do with hydro-generation. They built the power station and turned off the river. Now they turn it on again for 15 minutes every two hours from 10am until 4pm.  This seems to be just for the tourists as it doesn't feel like it makes any sense from a power generation point of view.

Anyway, it was quite impressive to see.

Now in Rotorua, drinking craft beer and listening to some girls play acoustic music. Getting quite good at this relaxing thing!

Geothermal stuff

Having completed (nearly) all the adventurous things that we had planned for the holiday, we're now back in tourist mode. So today started with a very long, cooked breakfast with lots of tea in a nice café in Taupo.

We then headed off to see one of the recommended geothermal areas, Orakei Korako. Amongst a host of geothermal-type things, steam-vents, geysers etc, this had one of Hannah's favourite things... boiling mud. It also had a cave, but we were disappointed by the complete absence of any Phytokarsts. So we watched the boiling mud for a while, and then went to the café for more tea.

In the afternoon, we went for a soak in some hot pools. This involved a lecture about the numerous 'health and wellbeing' properties of the water, and how it was important not to shower for 6-8 hours after being in the water or we would wash the health and wellbeings off.

Cheesy lectures aside, it was very relaxing, with hot water pouring down a hillside and falling into the pools through a waterfall. We both feel much more relaxed as a result.

Lake Taupo is actually a crater from the most explosive recorded volcanic event. We've seen a few craters in the last couple of weeks but at 33km across, this one wins hands down.