After the white water rafting we had the afternoon off to do as we pleased. As we'd been on the bus every day for the last few days we decided to chill out. The evening was spent in the Lava Bar across the path from our hostel where I learnt loads about baseball (cheers Simon) and drank too much beer.

The next day we headed to Taupo, home of the biggest lake in New Zealand and the cheapest skydiving option we are likely to get on our trip. As you can see from the photos, we did it! It was unbelievable - we were buzzing for hours afterwards. It was all very safe and well organised, and we've got the t-shirts, DVDs and photos! It was from 12,000 feet and we were very lucky because the weather had forced it to be cancelled for several days before. But there wasn't a cloud in the sky - the sun always shines on the Taxi bus (our driver's nickname is Taxi). You could see for miles as we plummeted towards the lake! Mount Doom was in the distance. Couldn't see any orcs/hobbits though. That evening we celebrated with all night happy hour with our fellow brave jumpers.

The following day we went into the Tongariro National Park. We looked at some volcanoes and saw Mount Doom from the ground. I went snowboarding - again very lucky since the slopes had been closed for a few days. They opened up that morning when the bus was 15 minutes from the slope. The snow wasn't great but there were some gentle runs with awesome views. Jo stayed with the bus and went to a volcano exhibition, another waterfall and a posh chateau hotel which used to be a mental institution. We stayed in the best hostel in the world - it was more like a hotel. Only 6 months old with jacuzzi, fireplace, massive tv, table tennis and huge communal areas.

Today we made our way to Wellington via Bulls. Since this is Jo's surname, I took loads of photos of the ridiculous number of Bull-pun signs. My personal favourite was Consta-Bull on the police station. Also appropriate was Compute-a-Bull. The weather has been a bit murky today and yesterday but the heatwave in Australia last week is now making its way to New Zealand so we should have sunshine and blue skies for the south island. Yay.

We've got a 3 hour ferry to Picton tomorrow. Jo is hoping it's not too choppy. Fingers crossed. It's meant to be very scenic and we might see more flipping dolphins.

Lots of love jo & mikey xxx