We arrived in Taupo mid-afternoon in familiar (British) weather. It was cold, windy and wet so first job was to find somewhere to spend the night. We dropped into the local i-Site (tourist info) which would become a regular start to a new town in NZ. They told us about a local Freedom campsite, Reid's Farm which was only 2 minutes out of town. Before heading off to find the site we pulled into the Library to steal some of their free WiFi to call home.

Taupo is known as the cheapest place to Sky Dive in all of New Zealand so we booked for the next available day and headed off to Reid's Farm after a quick grocery shop.

The weather had still not cleared so we had to find things to do to hide from the rain. We ended up spending the day in Lava Glass, a Glass gallery/factory watching glass blowing and visited a the Honey Hive to buy some NZ honey. After wondering around an almost deserted town we bumped into Chloe and Stu in the supermarket so we told them about Reid's farm. That night we chilled out playing cards in their camper while Liann and I mentally prepared ourselves to jump out of an airplane! Ashuming the weather improved!

Morning came and to our delight the rain had cleared and blue sky peeked through the cloud. It was on.

Before we knew it we were being weighed and suited up in stylish bright red jump suits and talked through the safety briefing. Although Taupo was the cheapest, Skydiving is still very very expensive, and if you want to have your jump filmed for prosperity... that'll cost you! The way I saw it was, I may never get a chance to do this again so I went for the more expensive free fall video option.

Twiddling our thumbs and trying to look calm and collective, our hearts sank as the sky darkened and rain started to fall. It was off! Feeling rather defeated we de-kitted and rebooked for two days time.

So as not to waste too much more time in Taupo we decided to squeeze in a trip to the Waitomo caves. Rain can't get to us underground. Right? On the way out of town we stopped at the Taupo Dam to watch the daily opening of the flood gates that creates a huge artificial rapids flowing down to the next lake.