BEDBUGS!!!!! Yeesh! There were bedbugs in one of the beds in my dorm! In fact, it was the bed I would have been sleeping on, had the only other occupant of the room not left that day, leaving me the chance to move to his much more comfy looking bunk. What a close call! I managed to kill six - yes, SIX - bugs as they emerged from their hiding places and appeared on the bed sheets. Thank goodness I had decided to read a little before sleep. Otherwise they may have migrated across the room and eaten me. After my experience of bedbugs in Kaikoura I was less than happy to see their little kite-shaped bodies in a room with me again.

The guy at the desk the next morning wasn't best pleased when I presented him with the six carcasses - the ample smudge material suggested to me that they'd been living the good life recently - but was reasonably apologetic. I noticed later that he had got the mattress up and treated the bed with chemicals, so hopefully the next occupants will be all right.

The activity antics of my Rotorua visit didn't end with the previous day's zorbing. I thought 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and went white water rafting on Friday morning. What better way to prepare for a bus journey in the afternoon than to plunge headlong into icy waters and throw myself over the tallest commercially-raftable waterfalls in the world? Well, it was bloody good fun.

There were four of us on the boat, (not counting two professional crew). All English, all up for a laugh. Before we got on the water we said a short karakia (that's a Maori prayer) to the river spirits to thank them for giving us safe passage, then in we got and we began our hour-long trip down the Kaituna river. This involved clouds of flying insects we were assured tasted of peanut butter, low-hanging branches that tried their damnedest to decapitate us, and three separate waterfalls.

The Daddy was falls number three, at seven metres. Our boat was only three metres long. Hm! The fact that we capsized at the bottom of the falls - albeit after tantalisingly doing the riverine version of a wheelie by balancing on the left-hand edge of the raft for what felt like seconds - isn't really surprising. What is surprising is that I didn't die or even panic much. We had had emergency procedures drilled into us before and during the trip, so when I found myself underwater I did just what I should have: I didn't panic, I didn't let go of the raft, I surfaced in the pocket of air trapped between the river and the upside-down boat, I coughed and spluttered to my heart's content, and then I bobbed out from under while managing still to hold on to the boat and my oar. Hurrah! Textbook performance from me there.

I'm secretly really glad the boat capsized in a real situation, and not just because the crew felt like tipping us in. (At least, that's what I think happened...) It was a total rush!

Back to base camp; peel off the wetsuits; avoid buying the extortionately priced photos of us in the boat; and back to civilisation. I just had time for a bit of lunch and then I caught the bus to Napier.

The weekend in the Hawke's Bay was simply wonderful. The weather was splendid, the company (Bernard & Amanda drove up from Wellington, and Tye flew up from Dunedin to be our local liaison bloke; he's from Napier originally) delightful, the food & wines second to none.

It all started well with the roast beef Tye's mum cooked us on Friday night. Her partner Norm is a weapons freak and full member of America's NRA (National Rifle Association, or Nutcase Rifle-toting Ammoheads as I like to think of them) so Bernard & Tye were very happy. In fact, Norm took them shooting on Saturday morning and they came back with six-foot grins on their faces. Amanda & I had walked around town instead, enjoying the fabulous Art Deco archtitecture and the glorious sunshine.

Together, we drove off to the first of the wineries we were to visit that day. We were joined by Tye's mum at Craggy Range vineyard, where we had lunch. A stunning brand-new building suite housed not only the cellars but also a top-notch restaurant serving what was billed as "traditional New Zealand cuisine" but was in fact really posh French stuff. Yum!

Winery number two had the best chardonnay I've ever tasted - it was so buttery it was like toffee! Top marks to Te Mata.

Winery number three (Black Barn) had great reds and a gorgeous view over the vineyards across to the hills on one side and the sea on the other. And the staff were good value too, with plenty of banter.

We stopped off for a quick beer (well, a change is as good as a rest) in a massive pub in Hastings that could have been teleported from London. Sadly, this pub stop cost us the next vineyard we had been hoping to visit (Sileni) because by the time we got there they'd closed. Oh well. Church Road vineyard was busy with a wedding party, so no joy there either. We decided to cut our losses and go touring instead, so Tye drove us to the hilltop cemetery where many members of his family are buried. It has very peaceful views over the flatlands to the sea and to Napier town.

That evening we went on a restaurant crawl, having a course in each. The places along the waterfront in Napier were good, but the best beer was served in a classic Art Deco corner building with clock tower. Limburg is, despite its German name, a local Napier microbrewery that has a breathtaking variety of beers on offer. My personal favourite was the Limburg Pilsner, but the Red, the Golden and the Weizen were all very good too.

After a few courses of food in a few places, we moved on to the bars which are over by the port, on the other side of Bluff Hill. We are talking "bogun"ville! Boguns are those young Kiwis who set a lot of store by the size of their engines, and like to demonstrate their horsepower by touring around the streets downtown, revving their engines and impressing the ladies. Hm.

Well, Tye may be university-educated and a successful businessman but deep down there's a little bit of bogun in him too, because he took great delight in touring round the streets downtown in the classic V8 Ford that Norm had lent him for the weekend. We even managed to have a gaggle of young female passers-by comment loudly on our "shaggin wagon"! Not forgetting the flock of 12-year-old girls in Britney-Spears-esque school uniform that ran shrieking up the hill before us... (No, that really did happen, by the way; it wasn't just a collective Benny Hill psychosis.)

And, just to top off the day's excitements, Tye managed to get a lift home with the police - not that he was arrested or anything, they just asked him where he was going and then offered to bring him there (he had wisely left his car at Bernard & Amanda's B&B). Only they didn't mention that they would be going on duty first! He was for the next two hours party to their stopping and fining dozens of drunk drivers, including a stolen vehicle and all sorts of shenanigans!