Hello from Taupo!

Taupo is right in the mddle of the North Island, next to lake Taupo, the biggest lake in New Zealand. The lake is actually a crater from a volcanic eruption nd noone knows how deep it is!Isnt that fascinating!

After a rather active time in Rotorua we had only planned to do a couple of things in Taupo, one was a skydive and the other a trip on a jet boat! Unfortunatly the weather had other ideas!

Our journey down to Taupo was on a lovely, if somewhat chilly day. Tha magic bus took us to the Geothermal wonderland Wai -o-Tapu where we saw the Lady Knox geyser go off and wandered round all the craters and pools. After that we went to Rock n Ropes, which is an adventure playground. Here you can climb up a forty foot pole and jump to catch a trapese, or do a tarzan style swing on a rope! Shockingly Andrew and I decided against these as we were saving up for our skydive instead! Plus it looked a bit boring to be honest, and not all that exciting! But then people may think we are boring for not doing it!

After we were taken to Huka Falls, which is a huge controlled waterfall. The rapids leading up to it are grade 9 apparantly and they looked rather scary, so im glad we had already done our rafting! the waterfall itself is pretty huge and spectacular to look at, it really made you appreciate the power of water, and respect it!

Taupo itself is a pretty tourist city, there are loads of hostels and hotels and accomodation is at a premium by the lake front. we took a walk along the lake one day (when it wasnt raining!) and some of the houses were gorgeous! The 'beach' wasnt particularly up to the same standard as Fiji and the Cook Islands, but it was nice to wander by!

Of our four days in Taupo it rained for 3 days, and i mean it poured down constantly! This meant that our skydive was out of the question, so we are hoping to do it on the way back up! We did manage to take a jet boat ride along to the Huka Falls. Fortunately it was not raining for our trip, and it was a wicked experience to be riding along the water in a jet boat that suddenly does a 360 spin!!! You got a bit damp, but it was so much fun to be spinning about the river, and although i almost did, i did not actually fall out this time! which is an improvement for me! As impressive as the huka falls look from above they are breathtaking from the bottom! You can feel the boat being dragged along by the force of the waterfall and you appreciate how huge it actually is!

Our time in Taupo has been somewhat hampered by the weather. but fortunately the hostel was well stocked with videos to watch on a wet day, so we were ok. We also shared a dorm with a succession of snorers, which is not impressive, and one man who was in our room for the duration of our stay not only snored like Gollum, but also ignored me completely everytime i spoke! He was british aswell, which makes it worse! But never mind!

Taupo is a great place to wander round if the waether is good enough. We wanted to to the Tongariro crossing, which is a one day trek, but couldn't because of the weather, nor could we do the walk to the huka falls, but hopefully we will get chance when we head back fro New Year!