Sunday 8th March – Taupo
Because I had become a daredevil since entering new Zealand, I signed myself up for a sky dive. After a reasonably fitful nights sleep – probably due to the fact that the next day I would throw myself out of an aeroplane, I was ready at 11 for the pick up. Unfortunately however due to the wind and clouds, the jump was delayed until 4pm so i now had 5 hours to occupy myself and wait to jump – waiting is by far the worst thing when you are slightly nervous about something, and I was now given an extra 5 hours! Decided to go for a walk down to the Huka falls, a 3 hour return trip, in order to be back by lunch time. It was a very pleasant walk, along the river for most of the way, past the hot springs, up into the hills so you got a good view over the river, and then eventually arriving at the falls. It was also quite pleasant because as a walker, all your fellow walkers say hello to you – a bit like you are in some sort of sect. This did mean I nodded and smiled over a hundred times on the journey though, but cant complain. Got to the falls and they were smaller than I first expected, I’d say about 7 or 8 metres high, and quite narrow, although they did have a load of water pumping through them at a very fast rate. Even considered the possibility of being able to raft down it, but the swirls were far too much and I think it would have been near impossible.
Arrived back at the hostel for lunch and met up with Rich, Jamie and Suzie. Walked down to the lake with Rich and sat and watched the planes and sky divers in the distance, you could see the freefall as a tiny little spec and then the parachute opening. And by then it was my turn to head over to the air field! Got there and because of the cancellations earlier due to the weather, there was a bit of a delay so we sat and watched the other jumpers go up and then fall back down again for a while until it was our turn. We were suited up in red guantanemo bay style suits, given goggles, a funny little hat, and an oxygen mask! I met my tandem dive master who gave me fewer instructions than I would have thought – in fact he told me nothing! We all squeezed into the tiny plane and I was sat on the floor right next to the door which meant id be first out. It took probably just over 20 minutes to get to the desired height of 15,000 feet – apparently your brain can’t comprehend height over 5,000 feet which is probably a good thing. At this point I was strapped to my very young looking instructor and he gave me his instructions – lean your head back and hold on to these funny loops, then lift your arms out. We opened the door which is very surreal, and my camera lady climbed over the top of me and hung on to the outside of the plane – even more surreal. Then I turned and dangled my legs out – so strange – and then we jumped! Apparently its best to go for as high a jump as you can (15,000 is the heighest tandem jump you can do) because you get a sensory overload – in other words your brain can’t comprehend what is going on and it takes you a good few seconds to in fact realise your falling and be able to take in the views and everything. Was such an amazing feeling, the views were incredible, the falling was fast although it was difficult to tell you were falling. Then thankfully the chute opened and we glided down like a feather, spinning quite a lot on the way down though. We landed with a tiny little bump and my first (i’m not going to say only) sky dive was complete!
Monday 9th March – Taupo
Today we were due to do the Torangina Crossing, an awesome 18km hike over various mountains including Mount Doom, but unfortunately due to the weather this was cancelled. So instead we hired some mountain bikes and decided to take an epic ride to the Craters of the Moon park – a park with geothermal activity in which looked believe it or not like the moon, although with more plants and tourists. The bike ride was awesome – down (and up) real mountain bike tracks in the woods, you could get a lot of pace on the way down too dodging tree roots, stumps, branches, fern bushes, thorn bushes and edges of the hills! Got to the Huka falls again, then took a track to get down to the craters of the moon. Quite a difficult track but so much fun again – there was a see-saw and everything to bike over. We must have sort of taken a wrong turn though because we arrived at the bottom of the craters, cycled pretty much over the steaming vents (there were no signs saying we shouldn’t!) and along the wooden path, taking lots of photos and smiling at our fellow tourists. Eventually we got to the exit which should have also been the entrance and were informed that there was supposed to be no cycling and a $6 admission fee...oh dear. We cycled back to Taupo along the road because time and light were running out and returned our bikes (which incidentally were free because they had half a pedal) back to the lodge.
Tuesday 10th March – Taupo to Rotorua
A reasonable 9am start this morning because it was only an hour and a half drive to get to Rotorua. We stopped off along the way to a little cultural stop talking about the area and the Maori tradition – we also got to taste some chutney which was delicious. Got into town and caught a bus over to Te Puia containing the Whakarewarewa Valley with vents, geysers, mud and thermal pools. Had a guided tour which was informative and watched the geyser spurt for a while. Got the bus back again with the nicest bus driver ever (mostly because English bus drivers are all tossers) who even stopped at a view point over the city to let us take a photo. In the evening we took full advantage of the free pizza being offered by our hostel.