Roturua, Taupo And The Magic Bus

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At the ungodly hour of 7am we were due to catch the magic bus to begin our tour around New Zealand, and thankfully, get away from auckland. The first stop was Roturua which is a geo-thermal town based south of auckland, which due to the volcanic activity, stinks to high heaven. Although not that far away, thanks to some exciting stops en route (the most thrilling being a shop that sells stones) we arrived in rotorua around 5pm, and without further-a-do, headed straight to the bar and the free bbq! After a less than succesfull game of wii olympics, which saw england truely embarrased by a couple of vikings, we played a few drinking games and headed out to sample roturuas famous nightlife.

The next morning, nursing a rather sore hangover, we decided it would be good idea to row a raft down a 7 metre waterfall on the kaituna river. Turned out to be the best hangover cure ever. We spent about an hour on the water and rafted down the highest commercially raftable waterfall in the world. Me and ryan were right at the front of the boat and safe to say... shit ourselves at the sight of the beast! We ended up completely submerged under the water but it was well worth it and turned out to be an excellent day.

The next day, again getting up too early for words, we drove to waitamo to check out the caves and the world famous glowworms. Looking rather dashing in our wetsuits and white wellies, we headed down into the pitch black caves and freezing water. The glow worms were cool but i was more concerned about avoiding the 90kg eels and poisnous spiders. Further into the cave systems we had to jump off waterfalls into dark pools we couldnt see and also down a slide narrowly avoiding the cave wall at the bottom. We left the caves around midday and headed to taupo, which has a lake bigger than the size of singapore and is one of the best placest in the world to do a skydive... We duely obliged and headed up to skies on what was fast becoming the most adrenalin filled day of our lives.

Being a big GIRL and showing no fear at all, apart from my left leg shaking uncontrollably, me and my tandem master sat on the edge of a plane, 12,000 ft up in the sky, looking down at the ground below. Ryan being the real man jumped out at 15,00 ft. With no warning atall, we were soon hurtling at 200kph towards the ground in what was the most exciting 45 seconds of my life! Once the parachute was open only then could i really be able to take in what was around me. You could make out around 3 snow topped volcanoes, see both the east and west coast of new zealand, aswell as lake taupo beneath you. It was easily the best thing ive ever done and straight away i wanted to do another, it was only the $300 that stopped me! We headed back to town and drank the night away in an irish bar with some of the guys from the bus, still on a high from the day we just had.

The next stop on the tour was New Zealands capital city, Wellington. On the way our driver, young joe young, introduced us to the soon to be olympic sport of bus bowling! 6 coke bottles, 2 tennis balls and a bus is the ideal way to pass a rainy day. Amusingly, Ryan was winning for most of it untill this irish girl stepped up and destroyed the rest of the field with a strike! Ryan then continued to sulk for the rest of the journey at missing out on $72 dollars to a girl. Unfortunately we only had one night in wellington as we are keen to get down to the south island, still...enough time for a few beers anyway and we set off to the nearest bar with a 2 for 1 voucher in hand!

We are due to head to the south island via ferry tomorrow so will catch up soon!

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Comments

[Adam Moore]

45 Second thrill
Ha most exciting 45 seconds of your life???? I'd say that was more like when you lost your virginity!!!!!