Colonial Lodge Motel Taupo

... Falls - I'd been waiting to do this and it was a really nice walk up along the river - at one point it crossed a hot stream that feeds into the main Waikato river... it looks really weird seeing the steam rising and feeling the heat as you cross the bridge... there were a few people sat in the natural hot pools that form in the stream and I might have joined them if I'd had a change of clothes! As it was I got soaked anyway because the rain ...

How long will it take for hotels to offer free internet?  How does the little coffee shop aside the hotel offer free wi-fi broadband when you buy just a $2 cup of coffee while every hotel seems to charge close to $30 a day WITH limited upload/download ...

... which is at the end of the dirt track the blanket cloud cover had completely receeded and it was practically blue sky across the entire park. Having been here a few weeks before and seen no more than a bunch of macks walking around the DoC info hut it was quite something to see the mountains clear and reveal themselves completely. For the first part of this tramp you walk in the ...

... good walk. So we finally got to Tuahara, and after a long walk uphill on a very very overgrown trail, so overgrown I badly ripped my pants, we got a spectacular 360 degree view of the North Island and all of Lake Taupo, the biggest lake in Australasia and bigger than all of Singapore. It was a beautiful day. The only thing we couldn't see was Tongariro, shrouded in clouds off in the distance. I guess it was actually a good thing we didn ...

... that is until he cast his fly into a tree and lost it I got some some good pictures until the camera decided it wanted to start playing up - I reckon i might need to buy a new one in wellington tomorrow - i'm not going the whole trip with a dodgy camera tonight is going to be a quiet night just a few quiet beers on the deck of the hoastel as i have a 7.50 start tomorrow down to wellington

... s. Whatever you do do not stay at the Urban Retreat in Taupo! Grrrr. So I got the worse night's sleep there that I've had on my whole trip so far. So when we arrived at the lovely hostel in the National Park yesterday afternoon I had a BIG sleep! A couple of us also upgraded to these Loft rooms where you get two floors and two single beds on each floor - YES! No bunks! horray!! The views from the hostel window ...

... in a sci-fi film. The whole trail, which wound back and forth across the area, took over an hour and was fairly busy but this didn't spoil the enjoyment too much and there was always plenty of room to see. The highlights were probably the 'Artist's Pallette' - a shallow pool of many different brightly coloured shades of red, green, orange and yellow, the Champagne Pool - a small lake with carbonised water, or the bright green lake and crater where lazy/clever birds use the ...

... don't want to **** my pants! I saw De dive off without making a sound. Ok, I can so do this! So I sit tight while they bound my ankles and my sandals, then it's the moment of truth! I'm told to get right close to the edge, then look up so they can snap a photo. Right, ok, I'm totally in the mood to act like I'm having the time of my life! So the guy counts down, "3,2,1 and bungy ...

... it's very different, Rob told him that i was there 4 years ago so he pulled out the photo album, and i found the picture of our group from that time! This morning we left there and just went to the shopping mall before reaching Taupo,no skydives today as the weather is bad! Off out with the crew tonight so expecting a hangover LOL. will put pics on as soon as cam. Lots of love xx xxx xx

... Irish bar! Result.

We unpacked and then set off to watch the replay of the fight, which was an hour late arriving because what I hadn't appreciated was that the barman was (illegally) taping the fight at home and then bringing the video in for us to watch in the bar!

Anyway, we worked our ...