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Taupo
Hot water beach. Laura digging her own little water hole! We left Napier and headed back to Taupo with the hope of doing the Tongariro Crossing walk (that the bad weather had stopped us doing last time). We arrived mid morning to glorious sunshine and blue skies, but were disappointed to find it was cancelled the next day, once again due to bad weather. D'oh! Luckily we had a bit of time on our hands and held out and headed off after 2 nights! The 17km walk, which goes across Tongariro National Park, was pretty cool although the weather for the 1st half of the walk wasn't great - the visibilty was about 10ft, which meant that we never actually saw Mount Nguaruhoe which was Mount Doom in LOTR movies. But once we over the highest point of the walk (after the nasty but accurately named Devil's Staircase) the mist cleared and we were left with mostly blue skies. The walk was not nearly as gruelling as the Kinabulu climb in Borneo, but Laura still managed a couple of tumbles and has bruised like a peach as usual as a result! Luke decided to leave the tumbling for now and wait until a more spectacular opportunity presented itself...
After
Taupo
Segway rides! Well worth $10!!! the worst celebratory meal in the world, ever (soggy pizza - thank you anonymous backpacker who turned the oven down) we jumped on the bus to head up to Mount Maunganui. We passed back through the pleasant smelling Rotorua and went Zorbing, which is basically rolling down a hill in a large inflatable ball filled with hot water! Awesome stuff - we never knew that clothes in washing machines had so much fun.
We arrived at 'the Mount' and went and had a look down at the beach where we delighted to see some decent, rideable surf at last! We headed for the hire shop in the morning to grab some boards and suits, and went to hit the waves! We had such a good time that we went back the next day and did the same again, and an honourable mention goes to the good folk and Island Style surf shop who sorted us out with some discount-tastic prices on the gear!!
In our usual style, we then went to do the 1 hour walk up Mount Maunganui itself. The view was great, but it all started to go wrong on the way back down... we took
Tongariro Park
The Emerald lakes. Models sporting this year's essential His and Hers tramping garments. the steep path and unfortunately Luke slipped and took his ankle out beneath him, and made an excellent roar (that's roar, not scream) of pain when he did so! The rest of the descent involved crab-style movement on hands and leg until we were back on flattish ground and could hobble to the road to get a taxi to the hostel. A couple of lovely elderly Kiwi's stopped to show concern, and although they couldn't help physically, they prayed that it would heal quickly! Very, very touching.
The next planned stop was Coromandel, but as Luke's ankle was swollen like a balloon we decided to get back top Auckland ASAP to get it checked out. Lovely Bernadette and Pete came to our rescue and took us to an A&E to get x-rays etc. Having been sent off to rest a lot but without crutches or anything, the final verdict after 3 days of consultants, radiographers etc examining the x-rays properly was that it was broken! Luckily it seems to be a tiny fracture that is healing quite well, so no cast or anything was needed. This is a major relief, as we're flying to Fiji in a matter of
Mount Maunganui
As seen from Mount Maunganui! days and this could have caused more than a few problems!
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