After the stench of Rotorua I went to Taupo and got another hostel room to myself - the benefits of going out of season. It was lovely and warm in the day but quite cold of an evening, looks like it'll get a lot colder as i head further south, uh-oh...

The first day i got there i walked up to the bungy area (didn't do it of course - i'm not that crazy...yet). A girl was filming her friend jumping but the camera didn't take it, ha ha. That evening i had a seafood basket and chips (i had eating catching up to do...) in a sports bar which was showing Golden Shears - lots of NZ and Oz sheep shearers shearing as many sheep as they could. I only saw up to the 8th sheep then the barmaid turned over. Shame i don't know who won.

The next day i was booked on the Huka Falls Jet - a fast boat near some waterfalls.... We were all life-jacketed up and had a cool jet boat down the river. It was so fast, 360deg turns, going really close to trees, bushes, swans and rocks. And as you can imagine there was a fair amount of whimpering from myself. I was also looking forward to the Huka Falls Prawn Farm next door, where you can learn how prawns are born and raised, then go fishing for them, and even hit golf balls at them, into the prawn beds. But the shuttle bus was leaving straight after the boat trip so i would have been stranded there with the prawns. On my own. Again it looked pretty overated compared to the brochure, but would have been good in summer when there would have been more than me in the prawn park.

Sat and watched the sunset over lake Taupo and saw loads of skydivers in the skies (it's the cheapest place to do it in NZ, no i didn't do it - did it 7 yrs ago in oz) the photos to be uploaded soon.