Booked in to do the 'Black Abyss' 5 hour caving trip with the 'Legendary Black Water Rafting Company', we awoke on the 29th to torrential rain, and made our way to the company in the hope that the trip would still be going ahead! On arrival, with the trip going ahead as planned, we were introduced to our guides 'Boss' from the Netherlands and 'Rachel' from England, squeezed ourselves into tight, cold wetsuits, boots, helmets, and abseiling ropes, got a safety briefing and practised some abseiling skills, during which Trevor struggled to decide whether he wanted to be left or right handed for the abseil.

The trip begun with the 32 metre abseil descent down into the caves, where Sophie was first up. The abseil was fairly simple, beginning in the open then squeezing through a tight gap in the cave down into the dark, with our head torches illuminating the way until reaching the bottom where Boss was waiting for us. Sophie was followed by the Swiss couple that were also on the trip, Trevor, and then Rachel. Wandering through the cave system we came to a small ledge where Sophie was then connected up to a zip wire, and in the pitch black told to step off the ledge, at which point she flew through into the next cave, in which the ceiling was completely illuminated by glow worms, which looked just like a star filled night sky, or like when you stick glow in the dark stars all over your ceiling as a child! After everyone had come down the zip wire, we had a quick break of hot chocolate and flap jacks, anticipating what was to come next... After warming up, we were to cool down drastically! We were all given a rubber ring, and told to jump off another ledge and land in the black water below whilst sitting on our rubber rings! Trevor up first this time, flew off the side and splashed into the water, being fully submerged before coming up successfully remaining on his rubber ring. Sophie followed suit successfully, if not for a bit of water rushing up her nose, and realising that the water was freezing cold, watched (and laughed) as the Swiss couple both flew off their rings, going upside down in the water and coming up pretty bedraggled! Floating through the black water we admired further glow worms throughout the cave system and then climbed up into a small area to look at 'The Specials'. This was a well preserved area of stalagmites and stalagtites, which seeing as stalagtites grow at a rate of only the length of your fingernail in 100 years were pretty amazing, standing at around 2 feet long! Having left Rachel at the last activity, Boss then told us all about glow worms as we floated about the cave. Carrying on, we dumped our tubes, slid down a small natural water slide and crawled through a tight gap aptly named 'the birth canal'. We then waded through water down 'the drunken stumble' over uneven ground, often misplacing our feet and plunging down into the water, and where Boss pointed out an eel slithering around with us! Throwing ourselves off the top of a small waterfall, again the water rushing up Sophie's nose, with her not wanting to seem uncool by holding her nose, we then squeezed through water tight tunnels (we should mention at this point that Sophie's worst nightmare is small gaps, but surprisingly the gaps were just big enough for her not to completely freak out). Slithering our way along 'mud alley' on our stomachs, we emerged covered in the stuff, before having to climb up between the cave walls through a waterfall using all the arm strength we could muster. Rewarded with another break of hot orange squash and white chocolate, we then climbed up through another tight waterfall, crawled between tiny dark tunnels on our hands and knees and emerged into the final cave where we could see the light of the outside.

At this point we had one last challenge; descending back through another tunnel, with giant (and we mean giant) 'weta' insects hanging all above our heads, we then had to squeeze down a gap in the cave using our knees and bums as support to keep us from falling straight down, and manoeuvre ourselves through the tiny amount of space before ending up in another small tunnel. This was the tightest part of the journey, where your body was touching all sides of the tunnel, and there was risk of extreme claustrophobia setting in! Nonetheless we all emerged at the other side into the light of the day, pretty pleased with our achievement and having thoroughly enjoyed another first experience for ourselves.

Back at the starting point we enjoyed some bagels and warm soup, where we purchased some strange photos of the trip, and reflected on parts of the experience, imagining the pain our muscles would be in the next day! We finished off the day watching the cricket World Cup final where New Zealand unfortunately lost to Australia, after which we drove back towards Taupo where we stayed at a DOC campsite in the pouring rain once again!

Next up was our skydive in Taupo - Sophie's first and Trevor's second, having done one in Taupo the first time he went travelling. Waking up to a beautifully clear morning on the 31st March, we were confident we'd chosen a perfect day to skydive! Picked up from the tourist information building by the company 'Skydive Taupo' in the morning, on arrival we watched a few skydive videos, got our safety briefing, chose to have the 'handycam' photo and video option, and then met our tandem partners.

Sophie ended up with the craziest one there; 'Ronnie' - a German guy in his late 30s, who had been a tandem master for 20 years with 11,500 dives under his belt! He was intent on making Sophie's video as cheesy as possible, and with Sophie always struggling to understand any accent apart from Southern English, there was a lot of "what's?!" being uttered! Trevor had a far more normal Kiwi guy as his partner, in his 20s, and a lot more chilled out! It was soon time to board the tiny turbo propeller plane into which we squeezed 16 skydive couples before quickly taking off! With Sophie a nervous flyer anyway, she new this was going to be the scariest part of the experience, not helped with the crazy German guy being completely weird behind her, along with recounting the story of when this company's plane had crashed into the lake a couple of months earlier with everyone having to bail at 700m...we were unsure why we had chosen this company over the other in town at this point. We were both strapped onto our tandem masters with all the harnesses double checked and tightened so much we could hardly breathe. The views on the way up were spectacular, with clear skies and mountains surrounding us and the massive Taupo lake shining blue below us. At 12,000ft high half of the planes' couples jumped out to do their skydive; with each jump the plane reverberated with the lessened weight, and watching people just disappear off the side of the plane so quickly was ridiculous! At this point the remaining couples in the aircraft had to put on oxygen masks until we reached our jump height of 15,000ft, as the oxygen in the air was depleted at this height, and obviously with the door of the airplane open there was definitely no air pressure control in the craft!

At 15,000ft, with our helmets and goggles on, and all our harnesses checked once more it was time to jump. We watched a couple of other people disappear off the edge of the door into he sky outside before we were up. Trevor first, shimmied along the aircraft bench attached to his partner, before the tandem master pushed them out into the sky, holding Trevor's head back against his shoulder, and with Trevor doing his best impression of the shape of a 'banana', as instructed by the skydive masters. Finally, last out of the plane, Sophie shimmied towards the open door, not daring to look down, with both herself and the dive master laughing slightly hysterically before chucking themselves out into the open. Once again, not dissimilar to the bungy jump, the g force of the air and the feeling of complete free fall hit us as we somersaulted out of the plane, before the tandem masters released the tiny stabilising parachute and we plunged down directly towards the ground. The freezing cold air rushed into our face, and we could tell the skin on our faces was being pulled backwards in that very unattractive point at which all skydivers have their picture taken! The air rushed up our noses and into our gritted teeth, and while Trevor managed to open up his arms as he fell, Sophie battled against the sheer force of the wind to open hers up, still hearing the hysterical laughter of her tandem master in her ears!

After about 60 seconds of free falling, trying to take in as much as possible, whilst also trying to catch our breath, the tandem masters released our main parachutes and we were suddenly pulled backwards and allowed to relax! With Sophie simply thankful that her parachute had actually opened and that she could now breathe again, we both removed our goggles and settled in for the 4 minutes of gliding down far more gracefully to the floor. Sitting back in our harnesses we were both allowed to take control of the parachute pulleys in our hands, at which point Trevor tried to spin his around as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, Sophie's crazy partner was trying (and failing) to convince her to fly out over the lake (at which point she shouted a loud German 'nein')! Once again the scenery was stunning, filled with blue sky, the backdrop of enormous mountains including 'Mount Doom' from Lord of the Rings, apparently the curvature of the earth which we're not sure we saw, and the crystal blue lake shimmering in the morning sun. As we neared the ground, Trevor was first to land out of the two of us, coming in smoothly on his bum and managing to watch the last few seconds of Sophie flying in before also gliding along onto the ground on her bum, and her tandem master managing to land her whole parachute on top of Trevor. With slightly shaky legs, and exhilaration in our voices upon reaching solid ground, we were made to do a bit more over excited embarrassing video footage, before bidding our tandem masters farewell. Returning to the office, we chose a t-shirt each to add to our collection, watched the stupidly embarrassing and over the top videos that had been created, bought some photos and returned to town!

Once again, the experience was a major adrenaline rush followed by an enjoyable birdseye view of the stunning area! We decided it was not quite as scary as the bungy, due to being further away from the ground and not having to make the jump on our own, but nonetheless got our hearts pumping in a way that enabled us to take in more of the experience this time! We both decided it would be even better if we could train up to actually do it by ourselves...our list of future hobbies is ever increasing and becoming more and more adrenaline seeking!

No rest for the wicked, that afternoon we headed off in Barry in the direction of Tongariro National Park, slowly ascending over 1000m along winding alpine roads before we reached 'Tongariro Holiday Park'. The campground was situated about a 5 minute drive from where we would get the bus to the start the 'Tongariro Crossing' we planned to do at sunrise the next morning. We arrived fairly early and spent the afternoon clearing out Barry so we could take some 'snazzy' photo's for when we came to sell him. The campsite was fairly busy as a load of primary school kids were on an outward bound trip, making dinner quite a struggle in the busy kitchen. We also enviously eyed up their dinner of BBQ sausages and chicken (basically meat), while we were rationed to a jacket potato and tinned spaghetti. We had to be up at 5am the next morning to get the first bus, so we hit the hay early after preparing our day packs. It was quite a clear night so temperatures plummeted and we weren't keen to get out of bed when the alarm went off at 5am...After a bit of a rushed breakfast we drove to the bus stop, making it just in time for the bus. Still waking up we were taken the 20 minute drive over bumpy ground to the Mandgatepopo carpark at 1100m and the start of the 19.4 km track. We were greeted with clear weather but cold morning temperatures. Passing the main entrance the volcano warning light was green stating it was safe. Over the last couple of years volcanic activity in the park has increased following a small eruption in 2012, so however unlikely any red lights meant trouble.

The first hour or so took us along the Mangatepopo valley and then up the valley wall aptly named the devils staircase. Rising about 300 via zigzag paths, we walked as the sun came up overhead until we reached the 'South Crater'. En route we passed volcanic streams, small waterfalls and lichen covered rocks, the warmth from the sun slowly bringing temperatures up. From this point the base of 'Mount Ngauruhoe' loomed ahead, rising to 2287m. From here it was an optional 2 hour hike to the top of this volcano. Following advice we headed up the left hand side of the volcano where there was less loose scree and more solid rock, making for a 'less exhausting' ascent. We spent the next two hours following others scrambling along the side of the volcano and avoiding loose rocks that had been knocked free from those ahead of us. As it seemed like we would never reach the top, the summit came into view, although unfortunately for us some cloud came in just as we reached the top, obscuring the view of the whole landscape below from the peak. Tired from the hike we unpacked our sandwiches and had a break atop the volcano, which was famously used to film "Mount Doom" in Lord of the Rings; there were no die hard fans throwing rings in today though. After a brief rest we walked around the crater's rim taking some photo's of the views and after realising the cloud wasn't going to completely clear headed back down. The route down only took about 40 minutes of a slow 'spaceman' style jog through scree, intermixed with falling on our rear ends on more than several occasions!

Back on the plateau near the south crater we briefly stopped to empty our boots of dust and scree, before walking for another hour and ascending up the ridge of the 'Red Crater'. A heavily pungent smell of sulphur hung in the air as we walked along the rocky ridge. To the right it dropped away into a large crater stained a striking red due to iron content in the rocks. It was also belching out smoke from its many active vents. For a further 20 minutes we descended slightly, reaching the bright blue-green mineral coloured 'Emerald Lakes' and then into a vast plateau, before a short climb to arrive at the 'Blue Lake'. While the waters in this mountain high lake have a perfect clear hue, swimming in them and accidentally swallowing the water would make one quite ill (or worse) due to the many chemicals present, arsenic being one...The final section was a descent through tussock-covered slopes, passing a large crater recently created by a 10tonne rock ejected by the nearby volcano in 2012. The eruption of this had badly damaged the nearby shelter, but luckily for us we saw no large rocks hurtling through the air that afternoon! As the path wound downwards we were offered spectacular views of the countryside below, stretching as far as Lake Taupo to the north. The last section of the journey took us through forest for about an hour until we finally reached the Ketahi car park. Thankfully Barry was waiting for us, and we kicked off our dusty boots and relaxed for a while, proud but exhausted after our 10 hour hike through the dusty volcanic landscape!

Our main North Island activities complete within a few days of each other we updated our bucket lists and were ready to explore what the rest of the North Island had in store for us!