Happy New Year All!!!!

Well we are finally in 2008 and what a fantastic few days we have had seeing out 2007 and seeing in 2008!

We have already been to Taupo, as you already know, but as we didnt get to do all that we wanted last time we thought we would head back and get everything done! plus we didnt want to be in a huge city for New Years and pay through the nose for everything!

This time, thankfully, the weather has been on our side. It has been a beautiful few days so celebrating the New Year in wonderful weather was an awesome experience!

Our main objective for Taupo was to do our skydive - and we eventually managed it! We wanted to do it on New Years Eve as the perfect way to end the year, but after we got all geared up and watched the plane before us take off the wind suddenly got up, so much so that they had to bring the plane down and cancel all jumps for the day! We were pretty dissapointed, but hoped that we would be able to do it on the 2nd, when we had rebooked for! We decided to do a 12000ft jump instead of a 15000ft one in the end - we mainly wanted the experience and decided we could get that for a bit less money at 12000ft! We did have a cameraman jump out with us though, so we have photos and footage of our freefall experience, which will be cool to watch back! Considering Andrew is scared of heights he did really well. Neither of us fetl any fear, even as we acsended in the plane! I think it was because the instructors we were attached to made us feel really at ease, and were so confident that it rubbed off onto us! Even as the door opened and the wind started rushing past us all we felt was excitement and adrenalin! Emma watched Andrew jump first, it was strange to see someone have a quick photo with their legs dangling over the edge of a plane and then drop into nothing. you lost sight of him instantly! The freefall is the most awesome experince. it's impossible to describe what its like, but i guess the closest thing is like floating, but falling simultaneously! The windpower is amazing and the sights are just awesome over lake Taupo You cant hear a thing except for the wind until suddenly they release the 'chute and you start drifting to earth. Andrew got to control the parachute a bit, but emma was too awestruck to do much but watch. They did little tricks as you decend, making you spiral down. Even the landing is fun! Over all i think skydiving will be one of those experiences that we will remember forvever!

Of course in between all of this was New Years! Our magic bus driver Rangi invited us to sit outside with a few others and have a couple of drinks before we got started. Two bottles later we attempted to cook a stirfry. Andrew burned himself on Noodles and Emma somehow managed to cook and not poison us! I think it was the best stirfry we had ever had! but then after two bottkes of wine most food is good! Andrew thought Emma was gonna miss New Years when she decided a nap was in order after tea, but he carried on drinking another half bottle of wine before emma, somewhat miraculously, got back up and was rearing to go!!!! We headed into town and watched the fireworks from the domain then headed to the base Bar 'Elements', which was the only free entry bar - hence it was packed. Andrew carried on drinking, Emma didnt and when they headed home about 1.30 Andrew decided to ring a few people, namely most people in his phonebook! I hope Emmas mum still has the drunken message he left! To all those he rang, we apoligise for andrews drunken state. He just could not get over the fact that we were in 2008 and you were still in 2007! new Years was really fun!

The other thing we did (after we had recovered) was a huge walk to the Huka Falls waterfall. We watched some people bungy jump and decided we could never do that! But the walk was mammouth! It was so hard, and so warm that even when we got to the waterfall we had to sit for nearly an hour to cool down! The waterfall is spectacular though!

Taupo is a really cool place to be in New Zealand. Its not huge, but their is soooooo much to do. I have to say that skydiving was the highlight, but even if we hadnt managed to do one we would have loved the place anyway!

Aftter taupo we headed to Rotorua for a day, just to get some pictures of the cultural stuff mainly! We stayed in an awesome hostel though! Anyone off to Rotorua should stay in Treks!