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Rotorua or “Sulphur City” lived up to its name with a distinct eggy smell wherever we went. With the most thermal activity in the north island the ground bubbles with mud pools, spurting geysers and lakes full of the most exquisite  colours. It was fascinating to walk around but the stench was particularly overpowering despite the colds we both had.  Vaughan, one of Mark’s work colleague from his Sendo days met up with us for a curry in the evening and it was lovely to see  a familiar face when we so far away from home.

We left Rotorua for an ambitious drive around the East Cape which contains New Zealand’s highest proportion of Maori.  It was a long and winding road but offered spectacular views and a much more rugged coastline than further  north, full of bleached and contorted driftwood. We stayed the night at Tokomaru Bay a particularly stunning beach and  got to sleep in our own little Bach; Kiwi’s term for a beach hut. This was part of a hostel, but as the only guests we we had the run of the place and hung out with owner Sean and his Bullmastiff Butch.

We expected this landscape to resemble Lord of the Rings, not Lord of the Flies, so sharing a tea break with a rotting pig’s head and skin was quite unexpected. Moving swiftly on we arrived in Napier; a city destroyed by a 1932 earthquake and rebuilt in the style of Art Deco. The buildings were in great shape and a walking tour and historical video has  turned us both into Deco nerds, spotting speed lines, zigzags and sunbursts from a mile off.