Not in Rotorua yet!

Well the journey nightmares continue. We decided we'd jump an interstate bus from Paihia to Auckland and Auckland to Whitianga (a nice 7hr bus ride), which we'd hoped would then put us in a better position to get back on track with our Kiwi experience bus tour and also prevent an expensive overnight stop in Auckland. Well three days later we are still in Whitanga and will hope to catch the tour bus to Rotorua on Sunday morning. Eventhough we've not had a great  sense of 'traveling' on our journey so far, the places we've been stuck at have been rather nice. Whitiangia is a lovely coastal retreat with a Cornwall/Devon on steriods feel about. Loads of hills, beaches that are absolutely amazing, Mercury bay, Cook's Bay (something to do with Capt Cook and the Endeavour), Hahei beach( with the famous Cathedral cove from the Narnia films) and the most excellent Hot water beach. Local people keep saying that it's busy on the afore mentioned but we really can't see what they are on about it's certainly not like the Med. We are staying on a good quality holiday park camping which is good as it's nice and quiet but uncomfy at night as the heat during the day builds up and really doesn't cool too much, again we've had another near 30 deg day. The hottest part of the day seems to be around four in the afternoon. Anyway hot water beach if you ever go take your swim wear the surf/swim is smart and the hot water thing is where you dig a hole in the sand and let it flood with hot volcanic water from below. People then take a beer and sit in the pools and bascially give themselves third deg burns, we just put our feet in and we may aswell have had poured a kettle of boiling water over them, it's seriously hot and bonkers at the same time.