Taupo Times

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Early but leisurely start to the day. After breakfast Dave and I rented some mountain bikes and headed off to see what Taupo had to offer! We first headed up and rather (meaning very!) undulating dirt track to Huka falls, where 10,000 cubic metres of water falls a second! The waterfall isn’t very high but very powerful. From the falls we head up to the crators of the moon. We had no idea what to find here, but very pleasantly surprised. It’s a large geothermal area, with smoke rising from natural vents in the ground up all around you and bubbling mud pools. We spent over an hour wandering round and then stopped to have some lunch before hitting the mountain bike trails!

With over 50 trails marked through trails through the forest it was hard to decide which to do just out of the beginner and intermediate ones. We start with the ‘tourist trail’ which was lots of fun, bank bends, not too steep ascents and descents and lots of tree roots and pine cones in awkward places to navigate. After this we did a few more of the trails and when we were exhausted we stopped at the bee keeping and honey place on the way back. Learning about the honey bees which was very interesting, and then sampling some of the diffferent honey and meads! After teaching our paletes about the different honeys we feel obliged to try out the honey ice cream….which is with out doubt…amazing!

All sugared and slightly alcoholised up after the meads we head back, fresh with energy to power up those hills. Close to town we stop at the hot water springs. This is just an area of the river where the water is hot, so we join some of the other people whom are sitting in the river and enjoy the heat. After a short time it gets too hot, so I move further into the middle of the river where it’s cold, and then have pins and needles when I return to the heat, but soon acclimatise back.

From the hot springs it’s a short ride back, past a bungee jumpy location. We stop and watch a girl jump, I feel so nervous for her, and it definitely confirms I do not want to do one.

Alex, Dave and I had already decided to go for a night out on the town tonight, as it was nice to be some where on a Saturday night with more than 50 people, and places that you could actually go out to. We were chatting to a group of others in the hostel, one of whom, Kris who had been in the same hostel as us in Tongrariro, and some of her friends. It was also one of her friends, Pat’s, birthday, so suddenly we had a great little group of 8 of us and had a fabulous evening, partying away on the dance floor until the ‘wee hours’ of the morning as they say here.

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