Hot springs and hot beaches

You can smell Rotorua before you get there: it has a permanent, stale whiff due to the plumes of sulphur rising from the earth's crust - it's very thin in this part of New Zealand.

So Rotorua stinks, but it's also a hotbed (I had to pun it) of thermal activity with hundreds of bubbling mud pools, frothing hot springs, and spurting geysers. Amazingly this doesn't seem to have deterred tourists from visiting; Rotorua is one of the most touristy and commercialised places we have visited in New Zealand.

Sadly, the entrance prices were stinking too, and so we only went to see the free areas of thermal activity: the splurging and splatting hot mud baths and steaming springs. Med and I aren't keen on paying for the natural things - I don't think Mother Nature hoped for ticket booths, overpriced cafes and a plethora of merchandise to litter her greatest work.

But the free bits were great to see too. Beneath the ground is a system of streams, which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. Water reaches 300°C in places – creating the bad smell – hydrogen sulphide. A day was enough though - I'm not sure I could cope with the stench any longer than that.

We then went from hot water springs to a hot water beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. Usually, when you come across people with shovels on a beach, they are very young people. You know, little kids building sand castles, or just digging a great big hole because their dad has told them they can get to Australia (perhaps they say England here?).

So the scene at Hot Water Beach, then, was a little odd.

There were plenty of people digging with shovels in the sand, but none of them were children. At this beach in question, however, this was not out of the ordinary. Grown men (and women) bring their shovels at low tide and dig down deep into the sand. Because the beach lies atop a natural hot spring, the water that seeps up through the sand to fill the dug holes is hot - and I mean hot! It’s like digging your very own hot tub.

Med set about digging our little space (I was on the phone to family at home, so I "accidentally" avoided all the hard work) right by the cool, lapping seawater. We then set about wallowing in the really hot water in the early morning sunshine, watching other bathers in various stages of doing the same. This was genuinely the first bath I have had since leaving home in August, and it was bliss!

We then drove up the coast to the beaches around Cathedral Cove, famous for a huge hole cut into the cliff that you can walk through, making a Cathedral shape. It was just another stunning day in New Zealand - the sky cloudless, the water dazzling emerald, the air fresher than fresh. Oh and the wildlife, stingrays and hundreds of fish.

I had got my highs on the skydive, and it was now Med's turns to get the adrenalin pumping. We headed to Raglan on the west coast - beautiful because of rolling hills, filled with hundreds of sheep, that give way to the turquoise water of the sea and the occasional cliff dropping down to rocky beaches. The beaches, that are nearly empty, save for the few brave surfers that ride Raglan's famous waves.

Med hired a surf board, and took to the water where everyone called each other "bro", "man" or "duuuude". It was a reminder of my failed attempts at surf lessons in Sri Lanka - I must rectify this! Maybe in South America where the lessons will be cheap.

We then made a pitstop at 90 mile beach, which very long but actually 90kms (another classic, misleading Kiwi name). Then it was onwards and upwards to Cape Reigna, in the far north.

This cape is where two huge bodies of water, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean, converge. It is a wild yet peaceful place, but has moments of feeling otherworldly and eerie. This place is held sacred to the Maori people, who believe it is the place where the souls of the dead leave New Zealand to return to their ancestral, spiritual home - Hawaiki.

We walked in the wind and mist to the end where a lighthouse stands, seeing the rocky point jutting out to sea - Te Reinga - the place where the spirits enter the underworld. Clinging to the rock there is the ancient kahika tree, named Te Aroha. The spirits descend to the water on steps formed by the tree’s roots.They then continue on their journey to Hawaiki.

What makes it even more dramatic is the oceans colliding before your eyes. They differ in colour slightly and the waves crash and boom into each other, shooting powerful spray upwards. We sat and watched. We were drawn back to this auspicious place the next morning to catch the first light on the cape. As the sun cleared the morning mist, a ribbon of rainbow appeared over the lighthouse, eventually turning into a complete bow with the pot of gold - the lighthouse - at the end. This really is a very special place, we could feel it.

The weather had really turned in our last few days, casting a grey light over this beautiful stretch of coastline. We decided not to push our luck with a trip around the Bay of Islands and instead enjoyed the delights of our campsite by a river - which featured both a passing wild pig hunt by local Maoris and then some kind of nudest convention. Our jaws dropped on both occasions.

And so we had arrived in our final destination, Auckland. We bid farewell to our cosy camper and the sun came back out for the final few days as we explored the big city.