Wow!!!! got to Taupo and it is the most beautiful place i have seen yet! I realy really like it here and want to come back already! scary thing is that the old volcano here isnt extinct and they think it is due an eruption in the next couple hundred years and the last time it erupted it wiped out the whole north island! a time beofre that it erupted and blasted 800cu km of ash ect into the sky completely killing everything in the north island! (no one lioved here then) anyway to put that into perspective....mt st helens blew 3cu cm and Krakatoa 8cu km!! scary stuff! it is gorgeous here though! arrived and heading straight for tourist info and got picked up in a limo for my sky dive!!! it was great! there were 8 of us in it (10 on return) and it only fitted 6 people, had no air conditioning but it was still classy!! Got to the jump and were told out options and i decided to stuff the 12,000ft jump and did the 15,000ft instead!!!!!!! it was amazing!! got a dvd and everyuthing of the jumop all cleverly edited to a selection of my own music! cant wait to show people! you dont get much explained to you just suited up adn away you go! it was me and three english folk i met (kerri, andrew and joseph) that did the 15,000ft. we had to get oxygen in the aeroplane as we were so high up but the views were amazing! my jumper was called stevie and he was a,erican and pretty funny! got explained on the plane on the way up what to do and stevie strapped me on! i ahve to say it is a very intimate experience!! you are so tightly bound to their bodies!! i asked him what would happen if i fell off as i had no parachute my self and he said i would die!! reassuring!!! i wasnt scared at all though. there is no human perspective of it at all! i was last to jump and it was the best adrenilin rush i ahd ever had! fell very very fast spinning and turning for over 10,000ft in about 60 seconds!!!!! it was so cold and hard to breath but the exhiliration made you forget about that!!! its just so quiet except the wind screaming past you!!! wow! i want to take it up as a hobbie!!! parahcute opened at about 5,000ft and we floated on down having a look about and doing some spins which were a bit painful as i am still; so tightly staped in and the g force pulls at ypu! was great though! i couldnt hear out my left ear till about 9pm that night!! over shot the landing site!! ha ha!! so have got photos of my landing but i landed standing!! everyone else landed ion theirs back sides and i landed standing! felt good! just want to do it again so much!!!! would love to do it solo!! we eventually headed back in the limo to hostels had a bit og a hang arounf though at dive site ad the people who did the smaller jump went up after us. got to watch everyones dvds though which were really cool! ill try and email it to a few folk! brill!! dat that evening watching the su set over lake taupo and gpt talking to a guy called mike whop was camoing here for a week while his wife and daughter visited his mother in law! we talked about everything and everything! was really good and random! thats what i like about travelling having talks with peiople you are never going to see again so you have no inhibitions about what you talk about! headed back to hostel which was nearly on waterfront and met this guy from aberdeen who i think is following me!! ha ha! he was in hostel in tauranga and then in rotoura and then on my bus to taupo and here at the same hostel go-global i taupo. we got talking for a bit and went for a drink at an iruch bar where i have come to realy lake tui beer! its really nice! we sat up talking till about 3am!! he was doing the torringaro crssing the next day so felt a bit bad as he had a 6am start!! but it was a good night.