Taupo

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We got to Taupo about 2pm on wednesday. Our hostel is nice, we're staying at the Rainbow Lodge backpackers. It's a little out of the centre but its OK. We have a three share room so we don't have to talk to any randoms!

Taupo has lots of thermal areas just north of the town but the main attractions in Taupo itself are the lake which is huge and extreme sports. It's pretty much the adventure capital of the north although not quite as much as Queentowns in the south! The weather hasn't been fantastic since we've been in the north so it seems a bit grey here. We had a stroll around the town and then booked our skydives thursday.

We woke up thursday to rain...loads of it! Great, just as I'm really excited it gets cancelled. We rearranged it for the afternoon but even though the rain had stopped it still wasn't going ahead. With it being such a dull day we spent a lot of time in the hostel but as it cleared up a bit in the afternoon we decided to hire some mountain bikes and go to the thermal areas and Huka Falls. We passsed the Taupo bungy place and saw a girl who looked about 14 do it. Huge respect to her as she didn't even hesitate, it was 1, 2, 3 and she was gone! Her freind chickened out but I don't blame her! I think we all thought about doing it for a few seconds but that didn't last long, we soon came to our senses! We carried on with the bike ride to a natural thermal stream, the water was really warm and you could see all the steam above it.

The track we were on was really steeped, a bit dangerous with bikes and we realised after a while we had cylced along the walking path so headed back to find the bike track. This was just as bad, if not worse with all the slopes! We kept following the signs to Huke Falls and after about 45mins we passed sign we had seen before. Not quite sure how we managed it as we followed the track and there was no where to turn off. The film 'The Wrong Turn' came to mind when we reached the same point twice! We never made to Huka Falls as it was getting a bit dark so we just went back. It was good fun though!

We booked our skydive again for Friday morning in the hope that the weather would be OK. It looked really sunny when we got up but it was really windy. Surprise, surprise it was cancelled for the third time. We're leaving for Rotorua this afternoon so can't rearrange it again. Hopefully we'll get to do it in Rotorua. Fingers crossed!

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Comments

[Lisa]

I'll miss you!
Watcha H! Always nice to get a message from friends so thought i'd add one! i'll miss you lots when you back to the UK! its been great spending time with you! We have had a laugh to say the least - goodnight!