Blogs from River Valley, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

Pain! Serious thigh pain had set in from our walk yesterday and our bus driver informed us that we would be heading back towards the national park for more walking!! The waterfalls at the end of the long walk (Taranaki falls) were however really pretty and we stopped for a quick lunch break before getting back on the road. Upon our arrival at River Valley we quickly started preparing the group BBQ and our first job was to make 50 burgers. They were really yummy burgers if I do say so myself, and we had lots of compliments from the rest of the bus. Our sleeping arrangements were a little odd, we along with 30 other people were in the orgy room - essentially just a wide bench with mattresses running down alongside one another. There ... read more

Saturday 27th November 2010 (Taupo – Turangi – River Valley) Leaving Taupo we all picked up some lunch for a relaxed hike to Taranaki Falls in Turangi, stopping for a picnic on the river near a small waterfall, however it wasn’t till we left that we discovered the large waterfall from LOTR that our guide had been talking about. An exceptionally windy journey took us to River Valley, basically the middle of nowhere, slightly delayed after hitting a New Zealand traffic jam (a flock of sheep being herded down the middle of the road). We had a good laugh jumping into the river from a large wooden board that rolled out from the bank to the deep side of the river where you could jump off and swim back to start all over again! After dinner ... read more

River Valley... read more

hello!! just a quick entry to let everyone know that after a great few days in taupo i have arrived in the loveliest and most remote little place called river valley, and have a job here doing general housekeeping for food and board for 2 plus weeks with polly! so im sorry i wont be able to phone as there is no signal. I will try and write every couple of days though. Going horse trekking tomorrow, thought mum would love that! i knackered my knee a little doing the eight hour walk but it was so nice and worth it! climbed up mount doom which was an experience! hope you get this blog, im not sure if the others are being published, leave me a comment and let me know. thats about it, so i ... read more

No sooner had we checked in we were heading down to the lake in our bathers with a few of the boys off the bus. We had a dip. The water was very cool, very very cool, almost freezing! But we swam for half an hour and had a race round a bouy, 200 metres out and back. I came in a respectible joint first. We cleaned up and headed to a pizza place for a cheap meal. Ten bucks bought us a large pizza and wedges, that was more than enough for the two of us. We headed to the Irish Bar, Mulligans, which was highly recommended by Lauren, our driver, for evident reasons. They gave us money off for being kiwi expereince travellers. They also sold full pint, not poxy schooners or whatever everyone ... read more