Terraces Resort Taupo

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After the six or so of us jumpers were squeezed into our tiny plane and we'd taken off I realised I was only about as worried as I would be for a normal flight. In fact maybe even less so because if there were any engine problems on this flight we'd be all like “Do your worst, engines! We're taking the fast way down anyway.” My parachute instructor guy Ian – or Tandem Master as my certificate identifies him as – was very ...

... with us and it was a really good night. Only downside was when a ******** barman thought Dan had called him an ******** and had him chucked out. But Dan being Dan he just walked straight back in about 10 minutes later. All in all a very good birthday indeed. Thanks for the messages people have emailed me and hope you enjoy the blog and I'll probably see you all in the next 1-2months as money running low but I'm still having a great time!

... 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 ...

... course the lamb. I mean New Zealand: where men are men and sheep are nervous... After the dinner I used my two for one drink ticket to have a couple pints at the Lava Bar next to the hostel and met Khalid. Khalid was from Saudi Arabia, studying English in New Zealand for 3 months. He understood probably 3 quarters of what I said in our half hour conversation. He was funny, explaining that he didn't drink or eat pork at home ...

... girls who were hilarious! From hostel bar, to restuarant bar, to chinese new year fireworks, to irish bar, to wherever else, it was awesome. But it wasnt awesome waking up still drunk after 4 hours sleep to catch the bus to Taupo. I checked out, got some breakfast, and waited patiently for the tourist booth to open at 9am to get a ticket for the 9:15 bus. To my suprise the guy opened up ...

... we took at the Hidden Valley of Orakei Korako (or as the locals call it Okey Dokey!) near Taupo. It's really difficult to capture the beauty of the place in a few snapshots. (13) The Huka Falls, Taupo. Note the lovely shade of blue of the water caused by glacier melt. (14), (15) and (16), Again just a small sample of the photos we took late one afternoon when we were the only visitors (by far the best way to see these places) at The Craters of the Moon. (17 ...

... home after having a great day. Next day before the guys left for Auckland and we caught our bus for Rotaurua we came accross a scheme that will enable us to make our millions when we get back home to Ireland thus funding our aspired future of living half in New Zealand and half back home. On the lake front some genius had set up a hole-in-one golf competition. All the striving Tiger Woods had to do was get one of the balls into the hole floating on a little mettle ...

... room watching a period drama. Day 201 - Got up at 5:15am to have breakfast before waiting for my bus to the Tongariro NP at 6am. As I was in my room, one of the Irish guys I met earlier stumbled in, looked at me squarely and then staggered out - I came to the conclusion he was just making his way to bed (in a roundabout way) after a night out. I waited outside the hostel, as arranged and after an hour started to lose hope and the feeling in my extremeties - it was ...

... in Taupo itself. It is still really cold so the luxury of the on-site thermal pools are really welcome. On our last day we take an early morning a soak in the pools before continuing on our journey. The pools are fed by natural thermal springs and because of the freezing temperatures, sitting in the pools is like sitting in a thick fog. The pools are heated to around 39c which is really warm as long as you don't move from one pool to ...

... opviel, was hoe verbazend snel de aarde weer dichterbij komen kan, als je naar beneden valt.
En opeens was het moment daar: lucht! De parachute ging open. Wauw... stilte... "Alles oke?" "Ja, nu wel weer! Wat een uitzicht!" Ik moest iets meer in mijn harnas gaan hangen door de banden om mijn bovenbenen naar voren te brengen, zodat ik als het ware in een schommel hing. Of ik nog een beetje stunts wilde doen: tuurlijk wel! Rondjes draaien om ons eigen as, sneller ...