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Published: January 20th 2008
TAUPO... it was amazing! The city is built on a dormant volcano, and it's due to erupt!! Apparently it erupts every 2000 years, and it's about that time... The crater of the volcano is a beautiful freshwater lake that we sat around sunbathing beside on the 3rd day we were there. The water was such a beautiful colour, but no different than most of the water we've seen along the way! Our first afternoon in Taupo we watched people bungee jump and skydive (don't worry, i was not a participant in either one, though I was a little sad not to be skydiving... it was AMAZING to watch!). After watching a load of skydivers we took a shuttle back to our hostel where we checked into a nice little twin room (only the 1st night, the following 2 nights we stayed in a bigger dorm room) and got ready for a dinner out with the bus for one of the guy's birthdays. We went to a cool little mexican restaurant and were there for most of the night! We then went to the bar at our hostel and "got our groove on" before heading to bed. This was the night that
Karen Aim was murdered in Taupo, the first murder in the city in over a year. There are articles all over the newspapers and internet about it. It's incredibly sad, too close for comfort, and a tragic reminder of how careful we have to be no matter where we are. I just hope they find the people responsible... so sad.
On our 2nd day, we did a high ropes course. It was REALLY scary and difficult... I really loved it, I like challenging my fears and all that. It was also great value for money, only $65 for a few hours of trembling activity! (vs. hundreds for seconds on a bungee cord!). I'll post photos and a video of what we did. It was wild!!
On the 3rd day, we took it easy... as I said, we chilled by Lake Taupo which was great. We also went to the cinema and saw "I Am Legend"... not sure if I'm really a fan!
Yesterday we left Taupo and took at walk through Tongariro National Park. We saw 3 big volcanos, one of which was Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings!! There was a beautiful waterfall and we
also got to see the stream where they filmed the scene in LOTR II where Gollum is chasing a fish. It was a rather tiring 2 hour hike, but really good. After that we headed to the River Valley Adventure Lodge where some of our group went white water rafting. Our "dorm" was crazy. It was a 16 bed dorm where there were essentially 2 giant bunks (top and bottom) each with 8 mattresses and pillows. So... 8 people, side by side, on each level. Two giant beds, really. It was pretty funny, but thankfully only $22/night, our cheapest accomodation yet! We had a great roast chicken dinner last night as well... complete with pumpkin. Delicious!
Today we drove through to Wellington from River Valley after a rather funny scene of our driver and all the guys on our bus trying dreadfully to pry the door open. There was something wrong with the locking mechanism or something, and it took the driver + 5 or 6 of the guys to finally get it open. We were a little afraid we'd have to spend yet another night in a 16 bed dorm at River Valley! We got in this evening
and we are gone the morning. I'm looking forward to more of Wellington on my way back to Auckland.
Oh yeah, and right before I got on here I met yet another Canadian. He's from Mississauga and did his entire undergrad at Ottawa U and we never knew eachother. It's a small world afterall!!
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Dad
non-member comment
I'm jealous!
Looks like you're making the most of your time. Keep it up. Saw Brandon play hockey today, good game. Miss and love you lots. Dad