Ok, so up next morning and we left for Taupo, we left earier than scheduled in the hope that there would be good weather that afternoon for us to skydive. On arrival in Taupo, first stop was the Huka Falls.....awesome is the only possible way to describe this waterfall. Despite being a very short waterfall, the sheer mass of water going through is what is so amazing about it. 200,000 litres of water pass through the waterfall every second..............yes every second..............how amazing is that. Just to add to that, the water is an absolutely amazing colour.........bright, piercing turquoise blue colour, its incredible.

From the Huka Falls, with it being clear that the skydive was going to be cancelled for that day due to weather, we headed to the skydive centre where we all rebooked in for the following day. That afternoon we all headed to the supermarket for supplies, and whilst some went out drinking, with nerves about the skydive dive the following morning, i just spent the evening chatting to Freya and chilling before heading to bed. Booked for skydive at 11am, we had to find out from reception at 10.30am if going ahead. All looked good so we were picked up and taken to the skydive centre, where we watched a dvd, filled out paperwork, were briefed and kitted out. The first load went up with 3 girls and one guy from our bus, and as we were waiting for the plane to come back down and collect us, we were given the bad news that the weather had closed in and so we could not jump......second cancellation. We waited around for a while, weather did not clear and so centre shut down until 2pm and we were rebooked for 3pm. At 2.40pm reception informed us that the weather was still not good and so we were cancelled again.........third cancellation. When it came to the 3.30pm jumpers checking if they were still going ahead, we were all informed that all of us were being picked up at 3.10pm and all were jumping! With no time to think about it, we had been picked up, kitted out and were on the plane ready to jump from 15,000ft. Mike was my tandem master and Benny was my cameraman, and before i knew it, all three of us were out of the plane.

There is no possible way to describe the way it feels to be falling through the sky, 10,000ft in 60 seconds and then the final 5,000ft with a parachute! Incredible and amazing and awesome and mad.........no words to truly describe.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching everyone's skydive dvds and checking out the photo's and just generally being on an absolute high from it all. So that night was definately cause for celebration and most of us played drinking games and then went down to the hostel bar and then on to a karaoke bar. It was such a good night, one of those night where time just runs away with you and before you know it, it's early hours already. The night was finished off with photo's and food at good old Macdonalds, best way to end it!lol!

It was up early the next morning as we had to get on the bus for the next leg of our journey which was to take us to River Valley. On the way, despite the rain that was hammering down, so people on the bus wanted to do the walk at the Tangariro National Park where we had stopped, so whilst they went and did that, the rest of us chilled out in the cafe of the posh hotel having hot chocolate and just chatting. Once the others had returned form the walk made our way to Tawhei Falls which is the waterfall in the Smeagles pool scene in Lords of the Rings, where we all stopped for a 'Kodak Moment sponsored by Fuiji' as Lauren calls it.

On arrival at River Valley Lodge where we were to be staying, we were informed that the road is unmade and too small for the bus, so our main luggage was put in a truck and we all had to walk down the steep unmade road to the lodge. What a beautiful and relaxing place River Valley was, possibly my favourite place so far. I just loved how chilled out it was, like a big home really. Of course, there was also the dorm room that we all stayed in..........a 32 bed dorm, there were two sides to the dorm, each of which basically consisted of one massive top bunk and one massive bottom bunk that just had 8 mattresses on each. Absolute madness but brilliant too as it meant that all of us were together too. Before dinner there was free time, most went to play volleyball in the garden, whilst some of us went to explore a bit. To give you a rough idea of what this place was like, it's a tiny little valley with a river running through it and literally the only place in the tiny valley is the lodge that we stayed at. So secluded with nothing to do really, but that was what was so nice about it. The past couple of weeks had been so full on that it was so lovely to get somewhere and just have some chill out time. Anyway, for dinner we all had a roast, mmmmmmmm, it was yummy yummy and even better knowing that all of the veg etc had been grown there at the lodge itself. The evening was spent watching skydive dvds again and then playing a number of games set up by our driver Lauren. These games involved, starting on top of the table and trying to go right under and back up the other side without touching the floor (no-one managed it!), and also trying to pick up a box of matches from by the back leg of a chair with your mouth, again without touching the floor (Katie Wheelan did eventually manage this, she's very flexible!lol!), and finally the handle of a broom that you had to step over bring over the back of your head and then step over in a certain way and bring it back over to the front (it was very complicated but eventually we got the hang of it and most managed it). I slept suprisingly well in the big dorm, well expect for the whole dorm being woken up by a member of staff coming in extremely drunk and trying to get Jack to go back to hers! Funny now, but no-one found it very funny at the time!lol!

Next morning and some got up to go whitewater rafting, others went horse trekking and then the rest of us just spent the morning chilling out around the lodge. I got all my washing done, read my book, went for a wander, chatted with the others, just had a really really lovely morning not doing much at all! At 1.30pm it was time to make the walk back up to the bus and get going to Wellington.