We just returned from Rotorua (a.k.a. rott-o-rua for it's sulphor-smelly air - stinks like rotten egg!) where we had our base for the weekend in a nice little hostel with a spa. Rotorua is a thermally active area with heaps of hot springs, so there's nice spa's everywhere - just the right thing after a big hike.

Antoine, Pete, Steffi and I did a two day hike in the Whirinaki area. Relatively flat but still quite exhausting because of the many river crossings. Especially the second day was good training, we walked ~8hrs and crossed the river ~100 times. It's really fun for the first 20 crossings or so, but can get pretty annoying if you do that all day ;) Nonetheless, we had plenty of fun and it was quite an adventure because the tracks weren't always well-marked and the GPS didn't know that track. That'll change shortly, I'll upload it to OpenStreetMaps now.