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Published: October 14th 2007
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Yippee! We had a lie in this morning; the bus didn’t leave till 10am….Woohoo! Then it was off to Taupo. En route we passed Tongariro National Park, in it Mount Ngauruke (Na-ru-hoe-e), which was Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Then a brief stop at Huka Falls, quite spectacular 11 metres high and formed by an earthquake. We arrived in Taupe early afternoon to spectacular views of the lake. It’s 616km², the largest in Australasia and big enough to fit the island of Singapore inside it.
We spent two nights in Taupo and decided to pretty much chill out. A few people on the bus did sky diving and some other activities, but we’d been advised the best place to sky dive was Franz Josef, over the glaciers, so Sam, Stu and I decided to wait till then. Not that I’m 100% sure I can through myself out of an airplane, but we’ll see.
So the next two days just consisted of chilling out and having one too many beers. Sam & Sean had met a guy in Fiji from Taupo, so we met up with him for a few drinks and ended up in a bar where
all we drank was tequila. But believe it or not, this was actually nice tasting tequila, called Agavero (not sure of spelling), it had a honey aftertaste. Bizarre!!
Wednesday 5th September
We’re off to River Valley Lodge today in Taihape, but of course en route we make a few stop offs. The first and probably the best stop off so far. Tongariro National Park, we got to play in the snow…..great fun! Of course I ended up flat on my back in the snow after throwing one too many snowballs! Then it was off for a brief walk at Taranaki Falls before arriving early afternoon at River Lodge. It was pretty cold when we got there. Some decided to go for a walk, others played pitch and putt, Sam & I decided to be really lazy and we hit the spa and sauna. It was pretty surreal, sat at the edge of the river in the cold in a red hot spa, but very relaxing. That night we had a roast dinner which was delicious. The dorms in this place where pretty crazy too, they were just long bunk beds that slept four, then a partition and another 4,
a bit crazy.
The following day it was white water rafting, on the Rangitikei River, also used in Lord of the Rings. I had to laugh though, they didn’t take payment from you before, just in case you don’t come back, how comforting. Now this place wasn’t the warmest, so I was quite pleased when we got all these layers to put on under our suit and waterproof jacket. We then split into 2 boats; Sam, Andre and I were in a boat with a huge Auzzie guy and a huge Maori guy and obviously the guide. Sean, Becky and Stu were in a boat with other people from our bus. I reckon we got the better deal as apart from me, the only girl; we had a strong crew, so we spent more time sat up tackling the river, whereas the other boat spent quite a lot of time tucked into their boat. It was totally awesome and once we got going I forgot how cold it was.
When we got to the end of the rapids a farmer had lost his cow on the other side of the river, so we had to help coax it
Drunk In Taupo
Me, Becky & some random back in the water and our guide got in the water and swam the cow across. It was hilarious, but even funnier, Sam decided to scoop up a big pile of cow on his paddle and planned to dump it on Stu’s head (we were all wearing helmets) but at the wrong moment Stu turned around and ended up with it in his face. Yuck!! Stu was a good sport though and laughed it off and if I’m honest Sam looked mortified by what he’d done. As you can imagine Stu got a few new nicknames after that. Anyway after all that excitement it was off to the hot showers, (heaven) then lunch and off to Wellington.
We arrived in Wellington early evening, so it was off to the supermarket to get dinner and some wine. It’s pretty funny in New Zealand because if a hostel has a bar, the law forbids you to bring your own alcohol and most of the hostels we have stayed in have all had bars, but anyway that didn’t stop us. So after dinner everyone piled into our room where we had a few drinks then hit the town for another good night
Drunk In Taupo
Me, Sam & another random out.
The next day was a totally free day for us to do whatever we wanted, so we all took advantage of this and first things first we all had a lie in. The one thing about the Kiwi Experience is that you are always up so early to move on to the next place, so any chance of a lie in we took it. After that we decided drag our hung-over butts to the Te Papa Museum, were we spent a few hours wandering around the various exhibitions. Then it was a fairly early night, early start tomorrow.
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