Taupo

We arrived in the pissing rain in Taupo on Sunday night. I had booked my skydive for Monday morning, so we didn’t do much. The hostel in Taupo was cool, and me and Jim were staying in the Jungle room – which really consisted of some weird brown sticks stuck to the wall, some green swathes of fabric hanging from the ceiling and a leopard skin rug – but it was mucho exciting for us all the same.

The next morning, I got up, dressed, nearly got sick with the nerves and bid adieu to Jim. He promised not to carry on without me, which suited me just fine. I went out to ring the Great Lake Skydive Company to make sure the jump was going ahead – but shockety shock – it wasn’t. They said it was too windy to go. Ah butts. I’ve already tried to do a skydive a couple of times before in Ireland, and I was beginning to think that maybe it was not to be. I wasn’t too disappointed though as she booked me in again for the next morning so off I went to have a big breakfast with Jim. (We had huevos!!!)

After breakfast, we decided to visit the Huka Falls, followed by the Craters of the Moon (a geothermically active area, i.e. steam and bubbling mud coming out of the ground). I asked the girl in reception about the shuttle bus, and she said that it is not too far and we could walk. BOY IF I COULD HAVE KICKED HER ARSE!
We walked 2km to the start of the trail of Huka falls, which was 3km in length. The Huka Falls trail was very scenic at the start and then continued into the mud for another 2km. Huka Falls itself was cool, it supplying 15% of New Zealands electrical power. Then we walked another 3km to Craters of the Moon. At this stage it was feckin’ freezing. The area itself was cool, we saw lots of steamy holes in the ground and some bubbling mud, but I dunno if it was worth the trek. I used to think bubbling mud would make it all worthwhile, but I’m not so sure now.. Then of course we had to walk all the way back. I reckon we walked about 16km. That receptionist was lucky she was nowhere to be seen. :0 So we deserved a bit treat and bought ourselves some yummy dinner of chilli prawns & wineeeyo. Then we rented some movies from reception. A little bit of Team America put the smile back on my face.

So the next morning, I went through the same process of getting up, bidding Jim adieu and getting all nervous. When I rang the skydiving place they confirmed that today we were indeed going ahead! AWOOOHOO. Alas by the time they came to pick me up in the skydive bus, the wind had picked up and it was cancelled again for another day. They put my name down for tomorrow morning and I said I’d give it one last shot. We booked in for another night in the jungle. (room). Then we went for a walk along the lake, which was so choppy it looked like the sea. We didn’t last long on our walk as it was ice cold, windy and our legs and backs were killing us from all the unnecessary walking yesterday.

We spent the rest of the day lounging around, watching tv, making music on our laptop and generally vegging out. I packed my bag that night just in case I did actually get to jump the next morning (we have to be out of the room by 10am).