Spent most of today on the bus from Taupo to River Valley, with just a "short" 2 hour walk to Taranaki falls. My legs were just a little on the stiff side but the weather today has been lovely so a little stroll across flat open moors and through a forest was nice. New Zealand is so so beautiful, you can see for miles and miles in certain places without the view being spoilt by construction or electricity pylons etc.
The amount of time spent on the bus to get to River Valley was totally worth it an amazing remote location, as the name suggests, by a river in a valley! So remote that the bus had to stop at the top of the hill, we loaded our packs onto a 4x4 and had to walk the rest of the way down the hill.
It is a lovely little wooden lodge, the lounge area is nice and big but cosy room all centred around a big open log fire! The dorm is pretty cool there is basically 4 big bunk beds and on each bunk you can get 8 people, four on top and four on the bottom. each person has an individual matress - i got 2 because there are only 3 people on my top bunk and I was last to get here! The kitchen is a bit rubbish - there are 6 "hot plates" only the 3 small ones owrk - they aren't really hot! There are 2 microwaves but one doesn't work and the other looks like it might blow up when you use it! All the pans are very old - the lids don't fit and the handles are loose and spin around! I just about managed to cook - it took me 40 minutes to make pasta and vegetabels with sauce - which I can normally rattle off in 15 minutes! The toilets and showers are in a no walled tin roof area - similar to some in Fiji - except it is cold in NZ! The showers were nice and wamr but had CURTAINS and were made for midgets! the head was attatched to the wall at my eye level this made washing my hair interesting!

In New Zealand Heinz is called Watties and the baked beans taste like english baked beans with sausages but don't have the sausages in!!!!!