Quest Taupo Serviced Apartment

... and swim/ push our way ahead for a few more minutes before reaching the final part of the experience: A 20 foot long slide that you slide down feet first into a shallow pool. From there, the water shallows even further, and you walk a good ten minutes or so out of the caves back to where we started.<br><br>Oh, and did I mention the whole time there's a 400 pound Maori guy named Whinnie taking up the rear, and snapping pictures of us ...

... surroundings that make up the Huka Lodge. They do, and in an equally phenomenal way. The Huka is a fishing lodge like the Hope Diamond is just a diamond. The Huka Lodge is different than so many luxury resorts in that they are able to treat you royally, like royalty would really like to be treated. Very unpretentious and very professional. You feel as though you are with family your entire stay. If ...

... but the weather seemed perfect to me. Picture the scene. On our first night in Taupo, me and Ben were sleeping in our dorm room. We didn't lock the door so the girls would be able to get back in when they got back. Some girl came into our room during the night, stumbled about then used our toilet. It was weird. Her friend was shouting 'Kiki, hurry up. That's a dorm room.' But she still used the lav then left. Weird. The skydive was postponed at 1pm and 4pm the next day ...

... 11.30pm. We had to have a reasonably early night as the next day we going to be a long one starting off with a 46 metre bungy jump....aaaaah! The morning of the bungy jump arrived and we were both pretty nervous as we waited outside our hostel to be picked up. They arrived 45 minutes late (due to a random drug test on staff) that did nothing to help our nerves. We got to Taupo Bungy and were told to go have a look at people jumping and then come into the office to sign up when we ...

... former professor Cheryl Shanks whose "politics of global tourism" class I took senior year. The funny thing is that tourists look for the "authentic," while the fact tourists are actually there is a large part of what makes it a totally inauthenitc experience. If the "experience" were "inauthentic" people wouldn't go. In reality it's all just a show, a reinactment, and that's fine. I wouldn't have felt nearly as uncomfortable ...

... first has dissapeared! ****! Im next we start to shuffle forward, my head back as far as i can push as to not have an nasty accidents, and....... out.......i........GOOOOOOOO!!!!! <br><br>OH MY GOD!! Im flying through the air with a camera man next to me, and at this point i thought, what the hell am i supposed to do ? So i just put my thumbs up smile and enjoy the ride!(It turns out later that it would have made better viewing to strike a superman ...

... walk the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is a one day 18.5Km trek. So am keeping an eye on the weather at the moment as its been windy 60km/h winds on the mountains, well volcanos, so they don't like you to go in those conditions and a bit of rain is forecast too so we will see. Ideally Monday or Tuesday would be good, as I need to get down to Wellington now.. exciting!!

Hello all once again from the other side of the world! How unlike Chrimbo does it feel for us?? There are barely any decorations up and the weather is getting hotter and sunnier. Anyway, I digress, here's your new blog. We have decided to combine the two days in Taupo with the one we spent in River Valley as it was easier.....so there! We left the glow worms behind in Waitomo and headed out towards the heart of New Zealand to the small town ...

... town. Unfortunately most of the geological sights require you to pay a hefty entrance fee which is a bit wrong in my opinion. I hate paying to see natural wonders and I don't think it's fair. I paid $25 to enter Uhuru national park in Oz, but that was fine because it was a two day pass and two days entertainment for 25 bucks to see one of the nature wonders of the world is fair, plus all the money is pumped back into maintaining the park. $50 to see a ...

Today was a day of travel...we left Russell at 7:30 this morning and arrived in Taupo about 5:30pm...so a long day in the car. Our original plan was to go to Rotorua and spend several days exploring the geysers and volcanoes but, and I hope this doesn't offend anyone who has been there and found it lovely, we drove into town and felt like we had arrived at Niagra Falls...very touristy and ...