Beer, Beer, Sheep Sheep

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So where was I, ah yes we had just left Waitomo and we were onto Taupo. The bus was quiet on the way, this is not a regular occurrence and was due mainly to the fact that the majority of the bus were going to do a skydive once we arrived in Taupo. I decided against doing the skydive as one, I have already done one when in Oz and two, I think my bank manager would track me down and maybe not kill me but definitely give me a stern talking to.

I decided to go with the guys to the skydive place to watch them hurl themselves to the ground at 200 km an hour as I had nothing else to do. The weather wasn’t great, but they got the first load into the plane and off they went. I was given the role of professional photographer so I waited outside trying to look out for the parachutes. I waited and waited and waited and finally I saw colours in the sky, parachutes. My camera fingers went crazy, I was snap happy, I don’t think I have ever taken so many photos in such a short space of time, I must admit the quality of the photos were not outstanding, basically they were all blue sky which tiny dots on them which were the parachutes, I found out a few seconds later that the photos were even more worthless than I thought when one of the guys from the skydiving place came to tell me that the people I was photographing were from the skydive place down the road and I didn’t know one of them, whoops. I was exhausted from all the photo taking but waited like a good girl to take photos of people I actually knew, that time never came as we saw the plane land back down on the runway, the weather was too bad and they were unable to jump, the guys were all a bit on a downer as they had prepared themselves for the jump, they were told to come back down tomorrow and hopefully they could do it then, in order to cheer them up we decided to go out on the town, none of us were leaving in the morning so we could have a lie in and it was our bus drivers night off so he was going to join us. It was a great night, with lots of drink, dancing and debauchery, when it was time to head back to the hostel, (when the bars threw us out) we all came to the realisation that not one of us knew what our hostel was called or where it was. That is one problem with travelling on the kiwi bus, they organise your dorms beds for you so you don’t pay any attention to it, we walked around for what felt like days passing McDonalds about 60 times until I remembered that there was a BP garage across the road and the found somebody who could point us towards it, we were finally home.
Even though we didn’t have to go anywhere the next day and it could be spent in leisure, I was awoken by a bang on my dorm door at 9 in the morning by Kelly who told me to get up and come to the skydiving with the group because it wasn’t fair that I got to stay in bed while they were all dying and about to hurl themselves to their death so I did what I was told and met them outside. It was a beautiful day and there were no questions about it, today was perfect for skydiving. It all went off without a hitch, everybody jumped and everybody loved it. I will admit I was a bit jealous when they all landed, grinning from ear to ear but I figured that I will be coming back up via Taupo and if I have the cash then I will do it. The rest of the day we went to see what Taupo has to offer, admired the Lake and chilled out at the Huka Falls Spa park where you can chill in the hot pools while looking out at the most beautiful river, feeling all refreshed we decided to make another night of it, after all it was Saturday night but made promises not to be as messy as the night before, of course it never works out the way you plan and we ended up at some house party waking up at 6am to run like demons back to the hostel, shower, pack and be on the bus for 7, we just made it and slept on the bus like we were babies

After a much needed power nap, we awoke to the sight of what New Zealand is famous for, sheep, sheep and yet again more sheep with a few extra sheep threw in. we were nearly at our destination, River Valley which is located in the middle of nothing, its at least a 40 minute drive to the nearest shop, ATM or anything other than farmland and the odd cottage thrown in. We were in isolation and boy is isolation pretty, we arrived to be greeted by beautiful views of hills and streams and the sound of nature only interrupted by our oohs and ahhs. We went in to get our hostel beds and what can I say apart from it’s a good thing we are a friendly bunch, the dorm of which there was only 1 was basically just mattresses on the floor, we were practically on top of each other with no space to move, of course the boys organised the sleeping arrangements so that they were sleeping beside girls and not guys because sleeping beside a guy in close proximity for a couple of hours can turn you gay apparently, will they ever grow up, knowing them, I doubt it. The guys all went downstairs for their dinner which of course was Roast Lamb while I being the good backpacker I am tried to make my pasta a bit more appetising. After Dinner we chilled out and played some board games and read magazines, before making an early night of it, we were all exhausted, and even with the dorm being as it was, I slept great.
The next day, most of the group went white water rafting, I decided against it as the water was quite low meaning that the rapids were not of a great quality so thought I would wait until Queenstown so I could so river sledging. A few of us just hung around the hostel and went swimming in the river (when will I learn that rivers are cold) waiting for the rest to return. Feeling refreshed after my much needed catch up on sleep and very cold swim, I threw my bags in the bus ready for the big night ahead, Next stop Wellington, Capital City of New Zealand and what was going to be a messy night out as our bus was coming to an end, Kelly, Judy and Trevor were going home the next day and the rest were carrying on their journey to the south Island while I planned to stay in Welly for a bit so we were going to have one big send off

Photos to follow

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