So I get the bus from Windy Welly all the way to Taupo, our lunch stop was at a farm which is awesome as obviously I do love farms. It has sheep (standard NZ) Llamas and even pigs! It's set in some gorgeous valley setting - so bloody kiwi. Absolutely beautiful everywhere you go here - so lucky! I arrive, its pretty toasty hot - hello summertime. I head to my hostel and walk in and guess who is behind reception… only bloody Alice!! Ahh so happy to see her! I was meeting her there anyway but I wasn't expecting her to be behind reception when I arrive. She's staying in the staff headquarters there which was sweet as her friend is there working. So I get my stuff sorted and meet her at the lake front where we drink scrumpy in some sort of Queenstown reunion bonding moment. Its soo lush to be here with her. Love this girl! She's so chilled out and full of love a real hippy kinda girl. We catch up on the gossip then decide its time we head to get some food and a few drinks before we go get ready. We end up first of all in a café that doesn't even sell drink!? How could this happen. We make a sharp exit to the bar next door we sit outside and enjoy the evening. Her friend Sarah joins us and a Scottish lad she is working with. We then head back and we play cards while drinking Scrumpy and Champers - classy birds as ever. Me and Alice end up going out getting hammered in the only way we know how - Jagerbombs and many shots! We make friends with tons of irish guys who live in St Albans in Christchurch too (just like me) so weird. Such a small world! They get us absolutely more drunk than we already were by buying us so many vodka and lime sodas. It's a brilliant night there is a band on, the crack is excellent and me and Alice are reunited! Its so much nicer being reunited with a girl for me as obviously living in Christchurch I am one of the only girls here haha not really but there is seriously 9 men for every girl here so I'm not used to being with girls anymore its absolute bliss!! We go home via a famous burger joint - I have a slight altercation with an elderly member of staff. She ignores my order like 3 times, I can tell shes not listening so repeat it again and again and then she charges me and I'm like that's cheap for a double cheese burger, cheese quarter pounder and 2 medium fries and shes all like 'no that's right madam' so I get my receipt and there is no cheese quarter pounder to be seen. Shame on her. Haha and then another member of staff who takes over from this granny on till tells me not to worry 'shes nuts' haha so unprofessional but so funny!! That order wasn't all for me too by the way… it was for both of us!

So the next day I sleep in its awesome, I then go and meet Matt my kiwi friend he is a Taupo local,I met him in QT when he visited Rob. I adore him - one of the best kiwis I have met my whole time here. So chilled out and such a good drinker! What a perfect combination and of course he's absolutely gorgeous with good crack. He's basically every girls dream man. We end up having a good few jugs of beers on the lake front for a good few hours then we went for some noodles and went to eat them on the lake but it started raining - standard. It was just a drizzle so it wasn't so bad but still annoying when it had been lovely all day! I then headed back to the hostel for a little nap as me, Alice and her friends were planning on going on a cruise around the lake. So I figured I needs a power nap before this moment in time. Soo my bed is head on below the window and I am rudely awoken by a mad storm where all the rain in the world falls all at once on my head and almost drowns me!! I bash my head off the bunk above me when I jump up to shut the window. I am soaked through so badly! Its bad crack! Alice calls me 10 mins later all like 'time to cruise baby'… erm what?! In this rain? So like 8 of us are strutting down the street in the pouring rain to go on a cruise. Seriously. Is this my life? Me and Alice walk the whole way like 'what are we doing? do we really want to go on such a nice activity in this rain' so we get there to the dock all hoping the skipper isnt there and he isnt - sucess! But then he gets out of the car, I would also like to point out he looks even more devastated than us when we realised he was here. Clearly this is not his idea of a fun day out either haha. He says he has waterproofs and if we really really want to go then off we go. But he says wait 15 mins before we can go. So in that 15 mins 4 of us decide absolutely no way are we doing this! Alice decides she doesnt want to miss out as she's already soaked now so she gets on the boat and me and the others who decided no all head back to the hostel for some drinks picking up various takeaways on the way home. We get a bit pissed in their staff head quaters which is just basically their own flat which is super cool and then Alice and co get back finally and we all go out for a few. Taupo is dead however so we dont last long.

The next day Alice leaves and I meet irish Laura from work for a few drinks and we meet another guy from work Mark he is a local Taupo man so he tells us a bit of local crack and we meet his gf and we generally just get pissed in the sunshine on the lake which is awesome!! I end up in bed about 7pm and then get up a bit confused later on to meet Laura and her mates for a beer but its not a mad one as its NYE tomorrow - wahey!!

So its New Years Eve (my mams birthday) I get up have some breakfast on the lake - with no cider/beer in sight! and I decide to head to the natural hot pools. So I get a map from the iSite and off I go, for about 30 mins in the complete wrong direction. Worst map ever. Or Worst map reading skills ever - you decide. So I eventually get there it is very hot and sweaty on the way there, I also see some bungy jumping on the way which is cool. I then make it to the hot pools and they are rammed full of people so I refuse to go in as I bascially cant get in there anyways. So I decide to continue walking as there is a waterfall nearby. So off I go, it doesnt look too far. I eventually arrive and its pretty cool but not as good as I was expecting its like a metre high waterfall, I dont even think it was a waterfall to be honest! haha nevermind huka falls is lovely just a bit falsely advertised maybe the huka rapids would be better? I walk all the way back I'm so tired on the walk Ive seen people dressed like actually hikers in walking boots, sticks and water packs and then there is me prancing around in a dress and flip flops... such a good traveller always going for the hippy option for everything! When I get back to my hostel I figure out I just did about a 15km hike accidently. what a spoon! So obviously I make time for a nana nap as I am shattered to the max and need sleep so bad and I need to repair my tired body for tonight is party time!!

We start the night me, Laura and her mates and some randoms we've picked up on route having a lovely meal and a wee bit of drinkies first. I cant remember where we ate but it was insanely delicious and such a good meal to line our stomachs with! After that it gets a bit messy some of us dont have ID so need to go get it, some of us have vodka on us we want to drink now before we goto a bar and some us of (me) want to hit a bar immediately! Me and one of the guys head to a bar and then Matt arrives and eventually Laura and some of the girls turn up but we seem to have lost about 4 or 5 people somewhere? but we stay in this one bar all night its wicked fun, there is family fireworks around 10pm maybe which are lovely and then the fireworks for 12 are wicked although its actually raining by this point in the night so were outside standing on chairs in the rain watching the fireworks but its wicked. We basically spend the night going mad for tequila shots and dancing like mad people. I have no idea how we dont get cut off at the bar as we are all clearly smashed which is illegal here haha i think its cos we're in Matt's local so they know him? or its because its NYE and who the feck cares about the drunk people! We have so much fun!! its seriously an awesome NYE. Me and Laura end up queuing in the biggest queue ever at about 4am in Maccas which is pretty funny and I dont even eat most of mine! I pursuade matt when he's drunk to meet me for breakfast in the morning before I leave to head back to Welly.

So at 10am bless him were sitting in the cafe hungover, still a bit pissed, looking our best... having bacon and eggs haha live the dream thats what I say. We then have a little walk around the park and dock and then its time for my bus back :( sad times as I've had such a lovely holiday here I really have its been wicked!! So good to get to party hard with Laura and catch up with Alice and Matt!! My bus is an absolute nightmare bus... a girl sleeps on me the whole way home practically OMG how annoying!! I get no sleep so I'm shattered. But it was all worth it :)

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