19/03/09

Fairly decent night, only woke up a few times as Coops this time kept rolling on to my side of the bed. We got up and drove to the Aifields where we went in to a Sky Dive shop to ask about prices for tomorrow. We walked in to the first place and as we asked about the price I started to smell something seriously rank, when we'd finished asking I asked if anyone had farted the moment we walked in Helen and Rich said they hadn't. After we had stopped at the second one we realised that 4 wasn't a big enough group to haggle with and as the weather was perfect today we decided to book it. The moment we had booked it we were all suddenly desperate for a turd. Helen literally couldn't wait and darted to the staff only toilets, Pat was taking forever in the blokes so Rich went in the ladies when it became free. Pat finished first so I went for one in the bog he'd used, I now know who farted earlier, the whole room reaked so bad of moist, rich, thick gas I nearly spewed on the floor, I couldn't go in there so I waited for it to clear a bit. Some guy went and used it while I was waiting, I don't know how he did it. The assistants were keen to get us fitted out with harnesses so I quickly used the Staff bogs then got myself kitted out. The hats we had to wear were ridiculous we looked like something out of wacky races.

I was last to board the plane due to the toilet fiasco so I ended up sitting on the floor beside the sliding hatch. I got in and had to sit directly in Rhys' (my tandem sky diver) lap, I didn't want to lean back too much for fear of squashing his plumbs so I ended up sat at a really awkward angle which was killing my stomach muscles. I also had chewing gum in my mouth and didn't know what to do with it, which was playing on my mind somewhat because I really didn't want to jump with it in my mouth. As we inclined the view got better and better, they then set up oxygen masks for us which we needed for the final few thousand feet. Rhys got me to sit right on his lap so he could finish tightening the harness, I'm sure he's not gay. He then pulled up the shutter, I took the oppertunity to dispose of the chewing gum, I threw it out the side nearly losing my arm on the edge of the plane in the process. We then swiveled round so we were sitting on the edge with our feet hanging out and then we fell out. After a second of the weird stomach feeling, that went away and we were just plummeting to earth, spinning around and just enjoying falling. It was great. The parachute was pulled and it was then that I realised I had had my mouth open the entire time and now had the dryest mouth ever. We could see the whole of Lake Taupo from the height we were, it looked amazing, we could also see our beast of a camper sat there on the floor looking massive to all the other cars in the car park. I landed and was shocked to see the other 3 already on the ground, I don't know how they made it back before me.

We then got the joy of watching the DVD on the screen, Rich was well funny he wouldn't let got of the shoulder straps and put his arms in the air. The funniest part of all was Pat's landing, we were all told to lift our legs up for the landing, but he didn't put them down as we came to land and just landed flat on his arse. We all picked up our T-Shirts and then headed off to Taupo town. Crazy, we'd gone in to the place to enquire about prices of skydives at quarter past 10, it was now half 11 and we'd done one.

We drove in to town and parked up behind the police station. We all had a lot of dirty washing and it was time to wash the bed sheets again, I finally get a bed to myself! It seemed to take forever to get all the washing done, and a lot of it was still damp when the dryers had finshed anyway. We went back to the camper and I spent the rest of the afternoon in GlobalGossip using their electricity to charge my camera and use the laptop to go through the hundreds of photos we now have to organise.

In the evening we used one of the BBQ's by the lake to cook some burgers and sausages. Pat had to go get change for the BB and a Kiwi was like 'you bbqing in this weather, you'll freeze!' he was wearing shorts and T-Shirt. While we were cooking some Geordie came up and was so impressed with the idea of a BBQ, had to be the most excited Geordie I've ever seen. It was pretty windy and the sausages didn't seem to be cooking very well, we ended up having to cook them in the van in the end, so we ended up having loads of washing up to do, the reason we decided to use the BB anyway. We drove back to the same spot as last night for the night.

20/03/09

Woke up really early and didn't have to worry about clambering over someone to get up so I got out of bed and went for a run along the lake front. Spent about half an hour doing exercise, attempting to use a random rock as a pommel horse semi-successfully. Sat outside reading for a few hours, I had no idea what the time was, the Sun went in behind some mean looking clouds and the temperature plummeted so I went back to the van, it was still only 9am. The others started to stir and we got up and drove to a campsite because our battery was dead again.

I spent the whole day laying on the trampoline in the sun reading my book and exercising between each chapter. By about 5pm I'd finished my book and my face was lobsterfied. I asked the woman at the reception for directions to the nearest shop so I could get some sort of food. She gave me the s***test directions in the world. I ended up going on a 30 minute walk around the block the wrong way, when I got to the shop it was an industrial estate with no grocer or anything, so I walked back the other way which took about 5 minutes. I wasn't happy.

Got back to the camper and cooked a cottage pie in the kitchen, they had no roasting tin so we ended up just having mince with veg and mash on the side, it was really tasty though. The others all got ready to go out to town for the night, I wasn't feeling too good though so stayed back at the camper and relaxed with another book and tried to get some sleep.

They stumbled in at about half 12 and Rich had clearly farted, it smelt like someone had dropped a bag diarrhea on the floor and he spent 5 minutes trying to convince everyone it was coming from the fridge, in which time the smell still hadn't dispersed. I was nearly sick.

21/03/09

Woke up at 7 and Coops and I got our things ready to go. We drove the camper back to the info site and hopped out. Burns took the van back to the campsite and we met Nel, the Kayak tour guide and Joe and Rob the other 2 on the trip. It was really cold early in the morning but when we arrived at the lake the sun was out so it started to warm up. There were hardly any clouds and we could see Mt Tongariro, Mt Ngauruhoe and the other mountain we walked by during the Tongariro Crossing. It was nice a relaxing on the lake and we were paddling perfectly in time taking it nice and easy. The water was crystal clear and nice a warm. We kayaked out to see some Maori carvings on some rocks about 4km away. When we got there Nel told us that the carvings were only 30 years old, even so they looked pretty cool. On the way back we stopped off for some tea and biscuits and I got another photo of some ducks. As we were getting out of the kayak Nel spotted the wasp on the front of the kayak that I had saved from the water, he was just about dry enough to fly away and Nel decided to pour water over it then brutally squash it with a paddle. While we were stopped we were lucky enough to see a Waka, a Maori war ship, full of Maoris rowing toward us with their leader chanting along. Nel had only seen the Waka 3 times in 4 years. We were talking to Rob on the way back, a policeman from London, he was telling us how much he hates the police force and wants out as soon as possible. He told us that each officer has a quota of certain arrests to fill, apparently if they spend their time answering 999 calls and neglect their quota of cannabis user arrests they get a b******ing. Nel wasn't the best guide, we asked how long the Maoris had been here and she replied that it depended who you were, also, when I asked if we could see the whole lake from where we were she didn't know.

We got back and had a sandwich, it was really sunny but we were sat in the shade which made it quite cold. We wandered down to a market we saw on the way and found a $1 book stall so we stocked up. Hopped on the internet for a little while and then met up with the others at the van behind the police staion. They had spent the morning playing mini-golf, Pat managed to get the best score of the day, although they were the first ones in early in the morning. We chilled out by the van for a little while and then headed off for Napier.

On the way I noticed some Cop car turn around as they passed and then start following us. They turned their lights on and pulled me over. The b****** had caught me doing 115 in a 100, I explained to him that the van just picks up speed on the downhill but he was having none of it. He claimed it was the fastest he'd ever caught a camper doing. What a cock. I reckon he was just filling his quota as well.

We arrived in Napier, definately not as nice as Taupo. We hopped in to the Info site and found that there was no free areas to park a camper over night like there was in Taupo either, so we headed off down the main road and found a place to pull in on the beach. We cooked a curry with a medium spice to it, it was really nice, although Helen couldn't handle it. As we were cooking a load of people started making a massive fire next to us. It wasn't long before Helen was gagging for the bog, letting out rather noxious gas and telling us to hurry up with the washing up so we could get back to the public bogs. We made a quick get away and stopped at the first public toilets we found, Helen jumped out and tried the doors, they were locked, some old bloke pointed her towards some 24 hour ones down the road. We arrived there and all did a relay with the bog roll to and from the toilets. We drove back to our spot on the beach and went to sleep.