In taupo we had a close call when we nearly missed the bus! We took a wrong turn with all our backpacks and had to make a sweaty run to just make the bus in time! We were sad to leave taupo as this was our favourite place in New Zealand yet. We were on our way to the middle of nowhere though which I was looking forward to! We arrived 2 hours later at whakahoro and were welcomed by a family who moved here 6 years ago. They created a business and home for themselves set within 30 kilometres of land (one end to the other). The main river runs through the centre where they have created 3 buildings of dorms, a kitchen / bathroom and small cafe for guests staying with them. It reminded me of the Lake District here. Mum and dad, I think you'd like this place! We are surrounded by green mountains, rivers and walking / mountain bike trails. There are no other houses in this area so you have the whole place to yourself. When we arrived in the cafe they gave us a free drink and talked about how they set up their business. They called it 'blue duck farm' as they are trying to conserve the blue duck birds as there are only 3000 of them left in New Zealand. There are several activities you can pay to do here which contribute to their conservation project; hunting goats (as goats eat the blue Ducks and are considered pests / overpopulated here), setting up traps for ferrets / stotes etc that eat the blue ducks, horse trecking and 4x4 Safari to view the animals. Unfortunately I was too tight to do these activities as they are ridiculously expensive and I wasn't too bothered about doing them. So myself, Tamara and Sandra decided to spend the day going on a nice walk through the mountains instead. The weather was a bit hit and miss too, all of a sudden it would pour down with rain so not the best for doing outdoor activities anyway. We made a fire and toasted marshmallows over them and sat and chatted all evening / playing our new favourite Netherlands game Briefje in de pot spel! There is no phone signal or Internet so it's quite nice to make your own entertainment for a change. At one point all the power went down (apparently quite common here). It was funny to see how different people react to it. Myself and the girls just lit some candles, put the kettle on top of the fire for hot water and sat and chatted, enjoying each other's company. Whereas some of the other travellers who have clearly very different backgrounds went into a state of panic because they couldn't use the shower, cooker, lights or charge their precious mobile phone (which has no signal anyway?! Strange!).
The following day we had a really lazy day. The weather was rubbish, lots of rain so we just chilled around the fire. In the evening we were reunited with our friends from the previous bus; Erik, Anne-Marie, julius and alex.
These are the guys that taught us Briefje in de pot spel! We had a catch up with them and heard all about the east coast which they did (not included in our bus pass). They would be doing the big tongariro crossing with us on Friday which was great :-) hopefully the weather will be ok because it's been cancelled the last 3 days in a row due to it snowing on the mountain still. We are heading to the national park today and will find out whether we will be doing the 7-8 hour treck tomorrow or not. Hopefully we will as apparently it is the best walk in New Zealand.