Sunday 26th April-

On Monday we couldn't do what we'd planned because of the rain so we just had a wander into town. On Tuesday we headed to Taupo. There were only 10 of us on the bus and the driver was a funny guy so it was good fun. On the journey we had a few stops, the first being at Wai-O-Tapu where we saw a hot bubbling mud pool. We also went to see Lady Knox Geyser erupt (helped along by adding some soap stuff), which was cool. We went for lunch nearby and you could do one of the walks to see more pools and springs and things but we didn't think it was worth the money. A bit further along we had another stop. Rock 'n' Ropes was there (a high ropes course with a swing and trapeze) but none of us wanted to go on it so we went into the honey shop where they had working hives you could look into and you could sample different honeys and honey liquers, very tasty! The next stop was Huka Falls. The water was an amazing bright blue and the falls were great to see. So much water rushes down it that it can fill 3 olympic pools every 7 seconds. The next stop was just for us 2, as we had signed up to do a bungy jump. It was over a river and Chris decided he wanted to get dunked but Helen didn't. We got ready and we were weighed and we headed out to the little wooden platform 47m high. Helen went first and her ankles were strapped up and the bungy cord was attached, all the time distracted by the friendly chatting from the two staff. We expected a big run through of what to do and what would happen but they just said to shuffle to the edge and lean forward, so it was all very quick. We both looked down from the edge which was a mistake and we were pretty scared. We had to jump after the woman counted to 3 otherwise we would have chickened out. Helen's jump went well and she screamed a lot. Chris somehow managed to jump feet-first and he seemed to scared to make any noise apart from a feeble "woo!" at the bottom, he also wasn't dunked which he was a little put-out about. Two men in a little boat picked us up from the bottom and then we walked back to the office to get our photos.
We got to Taupo at about 3pm and after checking into our hostel we had a look around the town. The lake looked amazing- it's the size of Singapore, but it made Taupo absolutely freezing because of the wind coming off it. That night we treated ourselves to a nice curry at an indian restaurant. On Wednesday we just chilled out again. We had a fun game of mini-golf and had some tea and scones in a cafe. The next day we decided to do a boat tour around the lake. We were going to go on a little steam boat but instead went on a catamaran that went a bit further for the same price. There were only 5 people on the boat. We thought it was a bit expensive but it was very informative about the lake, volcanoes, mountains and town area. We saw a hot-water beach and some very posh expensive houses - one of which used to belong to Rod Stewart! The main reason for us going on the boat trip was to see some amazing rock carvings done by some Maori students. The big face was awesome and looked like something out of Indiana Jones.
The next day we were heading to Wellington. The bus went along the edge of the lake, winding over cliffs, and then over the 'Desert Road', which was very scenic. We would have had some good views of the mountains but unfortunately it was too cloudy. We had a few food stops on the way and eventually we got to Wellington at aout 4pm. We had 2 full days there. We went to Te Papa museum which was very big and pretty good. We also looked around the shops and saw the 'Beehive'- the parliament building.

Thursday 30th April-

We had an early start on Monday as we hyad to get the ferry to the South Island at 8.30am. The ferry was massive and it took about 3 hours to cross the Cook Strait. It was very cloudy and rainy for the first half of the journey but it cleared up half way and we got some good views of the passing scenery, including Marlborough Sounds. We got off the ferry at Picton and the Magic bus took us to Nelson. Unfortunately the driver was having a very bad day and the journey took longer than expected. We had to do an overnight stop there but there wasn't a lot to do. The owner of our hostel was very friendly and we even got free hot chocolate pudding and ice cream at night.
The next day we were getting the bus to Greymouth. It rained heavily all day so unfortunately we didn't get to do the planned stops on the way, which would have been seeing fur seals at Cape Foulwind and seeing the Pancake rocks. Hpefully we'll see seals elsewhere though. Even though the hostel there was an old fisherman's pub and was quite shabby looking, we both really like it because we got free bakery food, hot-water bottles, and baths with free bubblebath- the first we've seen on our travels. This was another mandatory nights stop but there wasn;t much to do there either.
We set off for Franz Josef on Wednesday and the weather was still gloomy. On the way we had stops at a greenstone factory and a gold-mining town. We got to Franz Josef at midday in time for some people to do activities if they were only there for 1 night, but a lot were cancelled due to the weather. We had planned on staying 2 nights and doing the half-day glacier hike, but the bus driver had said the heli-hike was the best thing to do in New Zealand so we put our names down for that for today. Last night we went to the pub and met up with some people from our bus for a meal and some drinks. Today it isn't raining but there is very low cloud so our helihike was cancelled. We could have swapped on to the half-day hike but we decided to stay an extra couple of nights here to try and get a good day for the heli-hike. It's a small place here so there's not a lot to do that isn't glacier-related.