rotorua smells funny

Hey all. hello from new zealand blah de blah de blah.

lets get down to what you all want to know: sam is wearing a nice figure hugging pair of tan shorts with a revealing transformers t-shirt, a must have for all fine young men.
ailsa is wearing nothing at all, moving on...

first of all the most important news of all... we went down a 7metre waterfall today!!!!
It was half way down the run we did on the Kaituna River. Look it up all of you who are playing at home. more about it below...

since we last spoke we went caving. it was cool but not. the trip was slow because of the group size. not 'size' as in numbers but 'size' as in age. the skill to abseil seems to deteriorate with age like a fine vintage of milk, a lesson we also learnt at breakfast today. oh, again for all of you playing at home we went on a tour called 'Haggas Honking Holes' at Waitomo Caves. Dont let the name fool you, there was no honking.

Then we drove from just below hamilton to rotorua, where we went xmas shopping!!!! since then we hav sort of given each other half our presents cos we got too excited about them and cos we wanted to use them on the trip. so now we hav a set of boules (from sam to ailsa) and a book of card games (from ailsa to sam) so we dont hav to plaay Gin all the time. we were both heaps sore after our first workout morning.. i think we overdid it a bit.. so we found some hot springs way off in the countryside..at okoriore hotel.
Then we camped at a dead end that the kayaking guy told us about, right next to the kaituna river about 20kms out of rotorua.

we went to the kayaking place the next day for our lessons where we met kenny, the owner of the company, a dude who designs kayaks and apparently is pretty dam good and had this little tiny rodeo kayak for his kid, who was about 6.
we also met glen, our instructor, then went down to the river with all their gear. glen checked out our dodgy skills on flat water. Twas quite funny becuase he was teaching a range f strokes we didnt know, but apprently did they same thing as the ones we did...

for the rest of the day we ran the river. slowly. playing in any wave, eddy or hole we could find to get our skills up to scratch again before we ran the lower part of the river. the lower part of the river was very very scary, comprising of about a 4m waterfall followed closely by a 1 metre evil frowny hole over a weir, which you can get stuck in :( . Ailsa did get stuck in this evil frowny hole, and got thrashed around for a while. That was the first Grade 4 section of the river. that arvo we jumped in some smaller rodeo boats and played in the upper section of the river.

In order to calm our nerves after getting thrashings we went and saw BEE movie. i recommend it to any one.We got a bobble head so everything was OK. then this morning, this poor little bumble bee was stuck in one of our cups, and i (ailsa) got him out, then fed him some honey. he got a little straw thingy out (which i think was his mouth) and sucked a heap off my finger! it was very cute.. and then he flew off, alive and well. thus proving everything in Bee movie. it was a very special moment.

This morning we both over came our jitter and ran the whole river. from start to finish, including the two grade four sections, the second of which is the 7m water fall the river is famous for. i must say with a smile of joy, there were no incidents or bailings that run, except for a chunk out of ailsa's thumb which keeps looking at me funny.

So that is the story of our Rotarua experience thus far. STill to come in future episodes is zorbing, the thermal parks and then a trip down to Taupo.

I know we promised pictures but two things went agisnt us:
1) my camera is out of batteries and we didnt stay in accom so we couldn't charge it
2) Ailsa left her camera cord at home and not even the force will get my cord to work.

so we bid you farewell for now and will probably talk to yu form taupo or the south island.

from ailsa
Darian: i would like to get you a tiki neckalce cos i thought that u wanted one? would u prefer wood, bone or jade? or i dont hav to get u a tiki if u dont want..i'll find u something cooler if u'd prefer :) xxx also can u make sure mum knows how to look on here. thanks

from sam
Bruce: I would like to get you a pair of black lacey underpants. would you prefer L, XL or XXXL. I dont have to get you a pair of underpantsif you dont want..i'll find you something more revealing if you want.

from both of us
matt: prawnland awaits us..we're probasbly not goin luging here tho, we'll go in queenstown. I (sam) have been luging there before so it should give me a nice little advantage.

NZ crew over and out.