Tuesday 20th The tour goes South

With a heavy heart we said good-bye to the thermal town of Rotorua and headed South for colder climes and on the way saw the most magnificent of sites – volcanoes everywhere and all bathed in glorious sunshine and snow. But that was after we had experienced some hair-raising moments at the Agrodome. The name in itself did not give the game away, but the advert did. We entered an arena and promptly went to the front as no one else was there and sat patiently as little well mannered girls do . . and then Beth saw a sheep. No not one sheep rather eleven. Then B said can we go and have a look – yes then Alex spotted a nursery and that was the last we saw of the little well-mannered girls sitting on the benches so angelic-like. No seriously the girls just bomb-blasted and loved the sights and sounds. When the show did start it was great to see the girls taking part. Fran milked a cow – Alex and Toni were set up with milk bottles and told to give themselves a drink . . on the count of three ONE / TWO / THREE and on three in came several lambs for the girls to feed. Boy the picture on Alex’s face tells it all. After that B and Becci were asked to catch two sheep which turned out to be ducks !! . . and the show went on to great applause. After that it was a quick trip to Rainbow Springs and Jon the tour guide who showed / told us all about the fish and birds of Rotorua. He was good and had a great sense of humour just like another Jon we know. Jane – of the sensible observation / questions asked how the fish were caught to transport them from A to B indicating that she thought it was a fishing line ! No a NET silly. . .there were thousands of trout to catch !! We then said goodbye for real to the smells and sights of Rotorua and headed off . . .The pictures abound . . then the desolute mile after mile. Stopped off in Taupo for lunch and met a Londoner from London would you believe? Told us we had another three hours to go to Wanganui – right and cheerful was he !! Then to make it worse on the way to Wanganui with the setting sun, Georgia pipes up and comments that she hasn’t seen a person for hours and this is rather reminiscent of some scary movie she saw – the Texas Chain saw massacre? This then put us all on tent-a-hooks . . it was however true we hadn’t seen a living person for miles . . and every car we saw seemed to be driving OUT of wherever we were going. Every hole in the ground was a potential burial pit . . .aaagh . . . the town of Wanganui couldn’t come any quicker for us.

Arrived at the girls school after 5.30 and was met by a warm welcoming party. I met a fellow kindred spirit in Adam – the only male and head of sport ! Our girls then went away with their billets and the staff got back on the bus, already planning tactics for the morrow.