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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Taupo
December 16th 2006

Published: December 16th 2006

So this morning's adventure began with The River Jet Thermal
Safari!. About half an hour or so above Taupo, and easy to find, was the River Jet. I turned up, donned a long velcro plastic map and put on an attractive life belt, then about 9
of us got into this jet boat. We took a nice cruise up the river. There was some lovely
vegetation to be seen (I feel like I'm beginning to repeat myself a lot now). There are
hundreds of pine trees that the Government have planted. They're American ones and aparently grow to the same height in 25 years as they do in the States in about 50 years, as there is no snow and frost on the ground. Some of these are being cleared though, to make way for dairy farming, one of NZ's biggest industries. The ride up was pretty cool, especially when the very funny and lovely guide took us whizzing round some corners. He stopped every now and then, explaining bits of the wild life and history to us. We past a cave where hundreds of years ago some Mauri warriors had trekked up to and stayed the night, ready to go and attack across the river as they wanted the better land where the geysers where (central heating, natural ovens for cooking etc.). The other Maori got wind of this and slaughtered them very early in the morning. Close to the cave is a big pine tree on a rather precarious rock. These pines grew from seed scattered by the wind. When they get too big for the cliff face they fall off, eroding the cliff. Looks a bit scary.

We ended up at the hidden valley of Orakei Korako.
This is a thermal park, with loads of geysers (there's one called the Diamond Geysor, and it made me chuckle to say so in a cockney accent. Simple things...). It was a lovely hour or so's walk around these geysers, very hot and sunny, pouring hot water out in little streams, all full of various minerals, making different colours. There was a mud pool too. I thought it smelt a bit like roasted chestnuts, but the Mancunians I was chatting to clearly didn't agree! The mud and the sulphur water is said to have some great healing properties. There was also a cave with lovely warm water in it, and one of the Mancunians managed to get his whole foot in it by accident as it was so clear. Another guy got his whole leg in and made quite a loud splash!

Once back across the ferry to the main land (it used to be a small dug out canoe 70 years go), I had the most lovely magnum type caramel ice cream. Then it was back in the boat for "the business end of the trip" where the guide put us through our paces on the boat. We went speeding along, did loads of 360 degree spins and went very close to some of the flora and fauna. Absolutely excellent. The back row, the Mancunians, got quite wet. One bloke had his hat fly off and by the end looked like he'd wet himself. He had to sit on a towel on the way home! I got a bit wet, my socks where wet all day, nice! Next 360 the duide didn't get me and I suggested he was loosing his touch. His reply was "Don't tempt me", which, obviously I did, and a few spins later even he ended up wet! The boat ride was brilliant, but I just wanted to have a play with it. Which is just as well that I then went off quad biking...

I haven't done any quad biking for years and years, but I remember absolutely loveing it. I went to Taupo Quad Biking for a 2 hour jaunt through the bush. You hear the safety stuff and how to operate the bikes. Then it's helmets on and off you go for a practice run over what turned out to be some fairly tame ground. I was a bit rusty and slow at first and I found it hard to get the gear change right. It was lift the foot pedal for up a gear, and press it down for down a gear. I think that's what is used on some motorbikes. Once I'd managed to remember that I just had to work on doing so smoothly... After our practice run we started off on the track. It was a mostly dirt track (or rocky, or muddy, or grassy) and you went along in single file as fast or slow as you liked, as long as you were safe. There were a couple of stops to get us all together, to rearrange us so that the faster more confident riders were at the front (I was in the middle). We also stopped for tea and biscuits about 1/2 or 2/3 of the way round, on top of this hill with some lovely views of some hills. The track was great, lots of up and down hill - the down hill really scared me at first, but I got more confident with it. There were some quite sharp bends that you just know I enjoyed hooning round. There were a few times when I was just a bit too adventurous, sliding around on my seat (but didn't come off), skidding and sliding the bike round corners (I didn't even swear, so it can't have been that bad), laughed manically as I went over some big bumps (so that was probably quite bad) and then thought I had broken the bike on some rocks. The throttle, brakes and gears still worked, so I figured I was fine... A lot of the bush we were driving through was quite over grown, so I had lots of leaves and soft branches against my arms and a few of them full on in the face, which was fun! At the top of the hill they split us into two groups. The guys went ahead and did a really rough trail taking them back to the farm, and us girls went back the way we had came (all up muddy hills with some sharp bends). I got sent out in front (there must be a look about me, as I was so charged in the glacier tramp and the horse riding too) and had a whale of a time going down the muddy hills and bends. I had to stop at an intersection and put the bike into first gear (we were facing odwn hill) and turn the engine off. I helped the others do this too when they finally turned up behind me and one said "You should work here"... yeah, like I need ideas put in my head about being a quad bike instructor in NZ!! The guide said I did better than the blokes usually do (of course!) and let me lead the way back to the farm. And then it was all over. A nice lovely spurt on some more open land. I wanna do it again! I loved it. It's amazing how your confidence grows when you go round some tight bends and haven't fallen off (even if some of them were very close!).

And now back to Liz's friend for the evening before some more natural and less petrol driven stuff tomorrow 😊

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