Blogs from Taupo, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 67

Star provided this e-mail update: I am in Taupo- where i will be staying until wednesday morning-then off to wellington. . doing great- i skydived today!!!! got pics and a dvd- looking like a very scared dork(: From the magicbus tour she is on: TAUPO-TURANGI-WELLINGTON Welcome to Lord of the Rings Country! Amazing views of the Tongariro National Park that were used in the movie trilogy. Along the Desert Road, you see some army manoeuvres or a herd of wild horses if you're lucky. If you are keen on doing the Tongariro Crossing, renownedas 'the best one day walk in New Zealand', jump off the coach in Turangi and plan for at least 2 nights here. In the afternoon you arrive cin Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Te Papa, the national museum, is well worth ... read more

We spent a couple of days in Taupo, which sits on the edge of a huge volcanic caldera which is now NZ's biggest lake, with one aim...to throw ourselves out of an aeroplane. However, people will be saddened (or relieved in Emma's Mum's case) to learn that the weather thrice thwarted our plans, although we were close...close as in wearing the jump suits and waiting for the cloud cover to clear so the plane could take off! Instead we visited the impressive Huka Falls and adjacent "Craters of the Moon" thermal area and spent a day in the town of Te Awamutu - famous for being the birth place of the Finn brothers of Crowded House and Split Enz fame (and therefore one of Emma's favourite places in the whole world!!) and were thrilled by such ... read more

I arrived at Taupo hoping to do the Tongariro Crossing the next day -unfortunately but my good luck spell with the weather finally ran out and it was three days before I could do it ;0( In the mean time I managed to squeeze in several relaxing days here just passing time and drinking coffee from cafe's overlooking the lake. Ahh. I briefly considered the almost obligatory skydive that everyone seems to come here to do but for the nanosecond it took me to decide it was a bad idea the weather was too windy so I couldn't go up ;0) I think I'd like to do one at some point.... but maybe when I've got someone else to do it with. On my fourth day the weather was good so at 6.20am (the sunrise across ... read more

Still have bad weather Still so gung ho to skydive Tomorrow...last chance. Since the weather is not the greatest I didn't want to walk too far off the beaten track. I walked a bit around the lake and then I came across this paint your own pottery place and decided to stop in. Before I knew it, I was picking out a piece, looking for inspirational ideas and painting away. I took a picture of my sushi plate since I will not be seeing this again until October/November! The store will be mailing this home for me...hopefully it arrives in one piece! The rest of the day was not very eventful. I just started reading my Australia Bible (AKA Lonely Planet) and am starting to plan the next nine weeks out. It is looking promising to ... read more

Look at the pictures. Yes, this is me!!!! I was thinking about this ever since I arrived to New Zealand. It's something I can't really explain. I had a husband that's been doing it as a hobby for the last 2 years and I never even wanted to come and see, not to say jump myself. But here, everybody's doing it, everybody's talking about it, and you start to think it's a normal thing to do - jump from an airplane... Since I started traveling with Erez we talked about it but we were both unsure. But as we came to Taupo, before planned (we were supposed to be paddling the canow now) it became clear to me that I'm doing it... Even Erez was surprised that I did all the inquiry calls and booked it ... read more