Colonial Lodge Motel Taupo

... but the photos are cool- check them out. Then on to Lake Taupo &#8211; 20min drive away. The lake in Taupo is the size of Singapore &#8211; mad when you think New Zealand isn&#8217;t exactly large. <br> That evening we went skydiving!!! We arrived at 5pm &amp; were hanging around until 7.30pm before we were geared up. We were initially told the jump might not go ...

... a flat tyre on the back left. With the help of our new friend chris he manage to change the tyre and with a shove at the back of the car and a lot of throttle Jon manage to get the car going onto the track the snow plough had made. During this time, Jon was also filmed for TVOne news! Slowly driving down the mountain he made it back to the girls school to collect jo. After our ordeal we headed into Napier and found a hostel to spend the night in. <br>

Well, we didn't actually make it to Auckland on Tuesday... Monday night after our "short" hike that turned out to be a lot longer than intented I started not feeling well and quickly went down hill. Mike was about to take me in right then. We decided that Auckland probably wasn't in the cards for the next day, instead we'd stay close and see how the day unfolded. I convinced him to wait til morning and see ...

... look up a motel and key it into Garmin, she kindly took me straight there. What a relief to have such a cute little room with all the essentials plus a TV! I was on the road early next morning for the last leg of the drive to Taupo. As it was extremely cold and there were snow warnings I had to check that the Desert Road as its called, across a high plateau, was open. I was lucky there was a lot of snow around but the road was clear although twelve hours ...

... 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 ...

... hour side triip (with some time at the top). At the end of the day I was looking at probably over 5000 feet of climbing, which is a truckload. I'm dead tired now. There are also side trips up Mount Tongariro and around the Emerald Lakes. Sweet as mate! 4. It's a one way trip. Going out and coming back is ok, but then you see the same thing twice. Not a problem, it's a crossing. 5. The weather is ...

... know I didn't) they are like a combination of sandals and flip-flops only cooler. Everyone over here in NZ and over in Australia wear them, especially when it's sunny. We got me a pretty decent pair of Reef Jandals which I really like and just as I was about to go and pay for them the man in the shop revealed an extra-special thing about them. In the under-sole of the shoe (the bit with the tread that you walk on) there is a little metal bit that you can use for ...

... jours d'ailleurs...). D'un côté je râlais intérieurement, car tout ce monde m'empêchait de me retrouver seule avec la nature. Mais d'un autre côté, je dois l'avouer, lorsque le brouillard s'est épaissi, j'étais bien contente de sentir la présence rassurante de tous ces inconnus... Puis, pur finir la journée en beauté, une fois rentrée à Taupo, je rejoins mon cher lac pour une petite baignade... Le soir je croise Séverine à l'auberge ...

... over to take a picture, only to find our Dutch/Belgian friends cooking dinner! This was starting to get weird! Moving on, we reached Turangi then turned west and north up towards the starting point of the Tongariro trek to park for the night, eventually settling on a grassy lay-by near the minibus station. We ate a good meal, packed our bags and settled in early ready for a testing walk the next morning. Just as we were about to go to bed, another campervan pulled in behind us...

Taupo, is een populaire vakantiebestemming aan de oever van het grootste meer in NZ. Het weer is mooi, het is rustig want het is nog geen hoogseizoen en genieten dus. Veel hebben we hier niet uitgespookt buiten het bezoeken van een waterval met heel heel heel veel water en wat kuieren rond het meer. Skydiven is hier een van de belangrijkste ...