Kiwi Experience: Part one!

So unfortunately I am trying to be mega mega quick about this but I am now coming to the end of my second day on the Kiwi Experience bus in New Zealand and I am in Rotorua. The tour unfortunately got off to a weird and sad start with a 19 yr old guy on the bus, 20 mins into the trip, collapsing and having a cardiac arrest. Half an hour, 4 paramedics, 3 police cars, 40 passengers (myself included) unfortunately having to watch at the side of the road, 600 compressions and a defibralater later he still wasn't properly revived and went into the ambulance with all of us being told he was 95% going to die - it was terrible!! It wasn't drink or drugs related and completely out the blue and a HUGE shock for the 3 guys travelling with him, I am just soooo glad he wasn't on his own! The latest news is that he is finally stable, but still extremely critical and his parents are arriving tonight all the way from Ireland, can't imagine how they must feel! So i felt extremely useless and all I could do was pray but he's fighting and still with us at the moment so that's good and frankly unexpected news.
So eventually 2 hours behind schedule we continued on yesterday after deliberation, it's difficult to do anything else really and Kiwi Experience have been brilliant about the whole thing, they've never had anything like this before either. We have a new driver (it was the original drivers 1st day on the job! Poor guy! so he went home), and we are getting regular updates!
If you are of the praying kind then please please pray! I never even spoke to the guy but it's weird how we all feel after that.

Anyway I spose anything I have to share after that sounds a bit petty and small but we have carried on the bus and I am having a great time! In an odd way the incident really helped gel our group and got people talking very early on. I have met some lovely people who will be on the bus with me until Wellington and I'm pretty sure there's going to be lots more lovely people on the south too! :)

So, so far in 2 days I have been to visited Mount Eden, crossed the Coromundal Peninsula, visited Cathedral Cove, been on a Gorge Walk complete with rope bridges and pitch black tunnels, visited Matamata (AKA Hobbiton! :P), and have just come back from visiting a Geothermal Reserve called TO PUIA in Rotorua - complete with lots of Moari history, geysers, lots of steam and bubbling mud pools, it was VERY cool and a bit surreal! The whole town of Rotorua smells like egg because of all the sulpher in the air! You get used to it pretty quickly though :)
Going to walk with a friend round a bit of Lake Rotorua this evening but here is just a couple of snaps, sorry it's only a couple!

To Puia Geyser

Gorge Walk

Matamata AKA Hobbiton

Cathedral Cove

Mount Eden (overlooking Auckland City)

Off to Waitomo Caves tomorrow! :)