Lake Taupo

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Happy August!!!!

I can not believe that it is already August, I feel like it was yesterday that I had left the United States. To celebrate our last week of July here in New Zealand me and six of my girlfriends went to Lake Taupo for the weekend, which is a four hour drive north of Wellington.

On Friday afternoon we picked up our amazing eight person silver mini van. This was the first time that we had to deal with the driving rules here in New Zealand, the theme for the weekend was.... KEEP LEFT. The driver on the other side of the car and driving on the opposite side of the road was tricky on the mind for the first hour or two of the trip but then it became much easier to deal with (by the end of the weekend we were pros). The drive was a straight shot because there are no "highways" here so it was a straight two lane road all the way there. We checked into Xbase Hostel around 10pm friday night and did not do much that night since the other girls were going skydiving on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning the six other girls went skydiving and I was there personal photographer which was fun. After skydiving we headed to Huka Falls which is right outside the town. We had a wonderful 3 hour tramp up to a 9 meter water fall which was beautiful. The water a shocking color blue. On our return trip back e stopped at the hot stream, which is a natural hot river that runs through the national park. We hung out in the river for almost three hours because it felt so nice. The river ran down into different little pools with small waterfalls we could sit under.

Saturday night we checked out the town and went to a few of the bars. It seems as though the country is about a decade behind us in the music scene. I relived my childhood songs all night from Britney Spears to the Macarena.

Sunday we got up nice and early and drove an hour south back towards Welly and went to Toringria national park, which y'all might know better as "middle earth" in Lord of the Rings. We did a 4 hour tramp up to the water falls because the toringria crossing was closed for the winter. However, the water fall tramp was gorgeous, during the whole time I thought I was a hobbit trying to get to the top to destroy the ring. After the tramp we headed back to Welly, and we are ready to start August.

I am glad to hear that everyone is doing well and survived the heat waves. August is going to bring some insane adventures and I can not wait to share them.

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