25/7/9 Waitomo to Taupo

On leaving Waitomo we pulled into the Angora Rabbit Shearing Shed which does exactly as the name suggests and is a rabbit shearing shed. The rabbits are attached by their paws to what can only be described as a rack and turned whilst having their amazing thick fur sheared off!! The rabbit looked so helpless with its paws tied out stretched but apparently, according to the rabbit torturing ladies, they aren't bothered. The rabbits are massive before they are sheared because their fur is so thick and they grow a new fur after being sheared, four times a year. After that little gem we stopped off for another walk to Ruakuri cave which is a limestone cave within a native forest. You can walk into the cave and see the torrent river cutting its way through. It is a pretty impressive sight and a lovely walk. On the outskirts of Taupo we stopped to look at Huka Falls which is a waterfall 11 meters high. There is a huge amount of water pouring through a narrow gorge which has been naturally carved by the water making it a really impressive sight. The water is really blue and the noise of the water is amazing. Before dropping off at the hostel in town we pulled into a view point overlooking Lake Taupo. The lake is Australasias biggest freshwater lake and is 616km long and was created after a huge volcanic explosion in 186AD. In ancient Chinese and Roman writings the explosion was seen lighting up the sky !!! Three snowcapped volcanoes stand over the lake called Mt Ruapehu (2797m), Mt Ngauruhoe otherwise known as Mt Doom to all you Lord of the Rings fans (2291m) and Mt Tongariro (1968m) and the views were spectacular. We travelled into town to our hostel right in the town centre with views of the lake and dropped off our bags. The room is great with en suite and TV and heating....this backpacking had changed !!! We phoned to book a trek over the Tongariro crossing which is a guided walk over the mountains through the national park past the volcanoes. we will be picked up at 6.15am to go on the walk and hopefully the weather will stay clear so we get great views. We had a quick supermarket shop to get food for tomorrow and then went to the Irish bar for some foods and a drink with friends from Matts bus. We had an early start so we didn't stay too long as we needed some sleep.

26/7/9 Tongariro Crossing..not quite.

The Tongariro crossing is one of the worlds top ten day walks in the world so not to be missed. We got up early to meet the bus . The bar downstairs had been banging all night long as it is Saturday night so we hadn't had a great deal of sleep and people were still in the bar when we left ! Two middle aged Kiwis were on the bus to greet us and they were just like a NZ version of Kath and Kim, hilarious. We were all checked for enough kit and as we were walking in the snow were given crampons. We drove into the National Park and stopped to take pictures of the sunrise over the volcanoes. It was a really clear bright day but really cold with frost on the ground as we parked up to start the walk. The first part of the walk was along a flat plateau of paths and boardwalks covered in frost, ice and snow. We were walking at the base of Mt Doom (Ngauruhoe) and had perfect views of the snow covered peak. We stopped at a place called soda springs where we all had a snack and used the loo before heading up the "steep" devils staircase. The path was really not too steep at all and we all got to the top of the part of the path at the top of a ridge called the saddle where we all had a short break. The next part was across a frozen lake which was really beautiful clear snow glistening in the sun and we had volcanoes all around us. It was really quite spectacular and the sun was really warm. We stopped accross the frozen lake to put on our crampons for the next steeper section and our guide had us all jumping and running around to check the fit of the crampons. In the summer you can do the crossing without a guide but in winter you need a professional to guide as there are avalanche risks. We stopped to regroup at a huge rock called Cathedral Rock and then carried on up past the red crater to the maximum elevation of the trek at 1886m overlooking several frozen lakes and a complete panorama of the national park and Taupo beyond....really fantastic. There was steam coming out of the mountain top as the volcanoes are still pretty hot. Sarah our guide made the decision to turn the group back the way we had came as they were concerned that there may be avalanche risk further along the trek. We turned back and Sarah told us we would be going down but not the way we had come. She got us to take off our crampons and we spent the next hour sliding down the mountain on our bums sliding through the snow. it was brilliant fun and everyone was out of control speeding down the slopes with two lads catching everyone!!! We walked the boardwalk section back to the carpark with really wet bums and were handed a beer by the driver when we got back to the bus. On the way back to town we were all given some chips to munch on and the bus stopped by Lake Taupo for us to see the sunset. We had a really lucky day with the weather and the sunset topped off a great day. When we got back to Taupo we decided to have a soak it the towns Hot Thermal Pools. We spent an hour in the steaming pools with jacuzzi jets and waterfalls relaxing before heading back to the hostel. We went and had roast dinner before falling in to bed pretty tired.

27/79 Taupo-Lizzies big day!

We had a pretty lazy start to the day and it was really brilliant weather again so we decided to take the plunge literally and do a sky dive!!! Phil has booked a package and is doing NZ highest water dip bungy in the morning..nuts!!! By the time we got up and went to book the 15000 foot jump we only had 25 minutes to wait before the bus came to take us to the airfield. When we got to the airfield we were shown the options for photo before taking us through to get changed into our flight gear. We were shown a video of what to do for the jump and grabbed gloves, a hat and googles and were told to wait for our names to be called. Our names were called straight away and we were off into the plane with our tandem sky divers. We took off and had really amazing views of the lake and the mountains below and at 12000 feet the doors opened to let three jumpers out. The doors closed again for our climb to 15000feet. The ddors opened and before you knew it Philhad jumped out leaving Liz moving to the door ready for her jump. Liz hasn't jumped from a plane before but was really excited and not nervous at all. We had over a minute of freefall before our canopies were opened and we had a lovely ride to earth taking in the views. We were spun round and twisted and turned to get a good look and a good ride before we both had perfect soft landings....absolutely brilliant. Liz wanted to go and do it again.....maybe Australia??? Check out the pictures...Liz has serious excess skin issues in one of them. After the jump we came back into town and had lunch and beers with two other jumpers. We spent the evening writing the diary so that the blog can be updated tomorrow and went to sleep pretty late when it was finally up to date. We need to stop having so much fun then the blog wouldn't take so long!!!

28/7/9 Taupo Phils big day!

We woke up ready to be picked up at the hostel to take Phil to Taupo Bungy jump sight just on the way out of town. He was pretty relaxed, more so than Liz who was really nervous for him. The Taupo jump is the worlds first cantilever platform and is NZ longest water touch jump at 47 meters above the Waikata river. When we arrived Phil went to fill in the paperwork and Liz took a look at the drop . It was a lovely view down into the completely clear water of the river which was really blue in the morning sun. It looked a really long way down but Phil was pretty cool and relaxed as he strolled out onto the platform to be attached to the ropes and bungy for his jump. He was attached and straight away without hesitation jumped off the platform down to the water but he didn't touch it after all even though he had apparently asked to be dunked. He came back up with a big grin and we watched his DVD to relive the moment. What a brave or nuts bloke he is!!! Thankfully the bungy people had taken some photos as the ones Liz had taken were pretty hopeless. In Queenstown is a really huge bungy that Phil has told Liz she is jumping off-there is no chance of that unless Phil does it as a tandem with her,...we will keep you posted. After the jump we went to the harbour in Taupo for lunch in a converted caravan. We had delicious crepes and sorted through our itinerary for Australia. We are having extra days in NZ due to a c*** up with our flight booking to Oz. We will be arriving in Sydney on 22/8/9 which some of you rugby fans out there will realise is the day of the All Blacks vs Australia match in Sydney. It will be a mad dash from the airport to get to see the game but it will be brilliant to be there at all. After lunch we visited Taupos museum which is a great little place charting the history of Taupo covering all the volcanic activity and war heros etc. At about 4pm we returned to the hostel to get the blog updated and its now 12.45am and we are still here. The photos are taking Phil ages as the system keeps slowing up. We didn't really travel all this way and do all the overtime shifts to sit in front of the computer for hours on end eh???

Please leave us comments if you are reading our blog as we do love to get feedback after our hours and thanks to all of you leaving us messages so far.

We are going to try and keep the blog updated every few days from now on but theres always some exciting thing to distract us so we shall see.

Love to everyone and see you soon xx