Day 21: Last day. We went to Waitomo Thermal Wonderland, where we saw steamy sulfur caverns and actual, thick, boiling mud.

Then we called a local skydiving place and told them we had to leave town in an hour, but we would like to go skydiving. They said "No worries! Come on over!" We got there and they gave us the gear and brought us over to a tiny, old airplane. We said "Shouldn't we get some lessons first, or something?" They answered "No Worries! Just get the suits on. We'll tell you everything on the way up!" That was the New Zealand attitude in a nutshell. We got up to 10,000 feet and jumped out of the plane. It was a tandem skydive, so there was an instructor strapped to the back of each of us. After about half a minute of freefall the instructor pulled the ripcord, & the chute opened, opening a whole new beautiful world for us. "Amazing!" There was silence & beauty everywhere.

Raj tied a camera around his neck, and was able to get these shots! Tammy is shown on the left giving a "Thumbs-Up" with her instructor.

Tammy said to her instructor "Can you make this thing do spins and loops?" and of course he was now challenged to show her what he could do. Upon landing perfectly, we thanked our instructors profusely for the fantastic experience, and for letting us live.

We got back in the car and drove 3 hours to Auckland, where we headed straight for the airport and caught our flight back home. Thanks to the international dateline, we officially landed 5 minutes BEFORE we left.

So that was it. The greatest adventure we have been on so far! Perhaps one of the best lessons we learned was that we could spend 24 hours a day together for 3 straight weeks, including time spent in a car while driving for long hours, and we still enjoyed being together. For all we did in New Zealand, we still didn't see half of the things you can see there, and we would like to go back one day. We couldn't recommend a place more highly. G'day, mates!