Alma Motel Wanganui

Wanganui.<br><br>Got up early next day and set off south under a deep blue cloudless sky, passing Taupo, with its enormous lake, the biggest in Australasia according to the lady in the hostel, overlooking the lake were the two snow capped peaks of mt. Ngauruhoe and Ruapehur, quite a conrast to the warm weather over the lake. I took some nice pics. This country has some gorgeous scenery and it is a pleasure to ...

... up and headed around Mt Taranaki on the 45 surf highway. Checked out an amazing musuem in Hawera with very intricate lifelike diaramas. Went down to Waipipi Iron sand beach and saw another amazing sunset with sea caves in the background. Made a fire and had a good chat before bed.

... was right down next to the beach. The people at the park were ultra-friendly and the cabin we had was fantastic, brand new with all the facilities we would need again. And the weather when we arrived was super-sunny and hot so we jumped in the wee swimming pool they had to cool off before heading in to town to visit The Warehouse (greatest shop ever! - nearly bought more t-shirts!!) and to pick up some groceries. As expected, the ...

... on the correct way to hold the paddle and how it should enter the water, and how it should arc just so for maximum thrust was invaluable but intensely irritating. I'd sat in the front as well so couldn't even cheat and not paddle at all, nor could I splash him, and he kept making me turn around to actually look at what I am doing with my paddle, like so. That evening we cooked up a great chilli and Andy spun some choons with the Ipod connected ...

... br><br> <br><br>We had another steepish climb upwards, and soon reached the very top of the South Crater. <br><br>At the top it was like being on the moon! It was so weird up there, mainly because we were covered by clouds and could only see about 10 metres in any direction! <br><br ...

... we were told that you had to be very quiet, because even a whisper would (or could) make the glowworms go out and spoil it for everyone. Apart from the difficulty of getting a three and a two year old to be quiet at all, we were then left by the guide at the dock because the first boat was full - without any warning or explanation of how long it would be. So we are standing there in the dark trying not to ...

... to think that we must have taken a wrong turning or that we had been too sleepy this morning to listen to our instructions and the bus was picking us up from another spot. After an hour we were really starting to think the bus had gone without us and then one by one they started to appear! We now felt an even bigger sense of achievement that we had beaten them, who needs 'real' walking boots!

... to a swinging harness. She was not impressed afterwards was rather more scary than she had imagined.......plus she ended up with mild whiplash....not fun! Quiet night on arrival at our hostel (YHA Action Downunder - kinda sucks dont recommend it! Caboose lodge is WELL worth the extra money!)

... and the odd fern tree anyway. But seeing this sort of landscape after after weeks of beaches, volcanoes, and other exotic scenes made me strangely homesick. It also made me pretty excited, especially when we caught glimpses of the river valley we're going to raft down tomorrow. We also passed through the Tongariro national park on th eway out of Taupo, home of ...

... site, and watched as people chucked themselves off of the platform. Some being dipped into the water and some not. We've decided we might do a bunjy but the thought of that scares me more than a sky dive. We headed back to the hostel for 2pm, where the van was waiting to take us to the sky dive site. Lee had decided that he'd do a jump seeing as he was coming along anyway, but as he's done one before he'd jump from 12,000ft. I wanted the full monty, 15,000 T-shirt, dvd, the lot ...