Accent on Taupo Motor Lodge

So after Rotorua we headed toward Taupo - a town on the banks of a huge lake - a giant volcano crater (I think). We didn't actually stop long in Taupo - just looked around the town and visited the 'Super-Loo' (not out of interest but out of necessity - although who wouldn't find a Super-Loo fascinating). Actually let me clarify - Gem visited the Super-Loo out of necessity so I never actually got to fully experience the superness therein. Nevermind - you ...

... the
hike can take anything between 7 - 9 hours so we had a long day ahead of us. We started off
....in the wrong direction, walking along the road instead of the track!! The whole trek
was absolutely unreal, one minute you would be boiling hot sweating buckets and the next
absolutely freezing cold and piling the layers back on. You'll see why from the pictures
its soo hard to describe but it starts off on a relatively flat gradient for ...

... out of Saigon. We, on the other hand, had a cup of tea and spoke to the owner of the hostel and it transpired that a minor tsunami warning had been issued for a few islands off New Zealand and a town further up the coast. It was nothing to worry about and a fairly regular occurrence. This was supposed to reach maybe one meter in hight and hit at 10.45. we waited until 09.45 to hear if there had been any problems further up the coast and the radio reported surfers ...

On Thursday we spent the day exploring Wellington beginning with the Parliment House, Beehive and Parliment Library. We had a great hour long, FREE tour with a funny guy named Murray. Lots of interesting information! Then we were off to Te Papa, the national museum. This was also impressive and interesting. There were a ton of exhibits, we could have spent all day going through it all. We saw most of the highlights including a geological ...

... round you and shook hands with you in mid-air etc. When we pulled the parachute at 5000ft above the ground I had an amazing view of Lake Taupo and Mt Doom too. They even let me steer the parachute for a bit. The best thing of all was the free T-shirt which is really the only reason I did it. So after a good way to start my birthday I was dropped off in town where I saw Dan and some others headed towards the Craters of the Moon, a local ...

... place to do one or the other. The bus driver told us of a combo deal we could avail of...a 12,000ft skydive, a bungy jump, a helicopter ride and a hukajet ride all for $500. We decided to go for it as it was our cheapest option to get all the activities we really wanted to do. That decided the Taupo Tandem Skydive van came to pick us up from Huka Falls at 2pm with two other girls who had signed up. We were all excited and not really nervous at all. We arrived at the sky dive ...

... if he hadn't liked Stevie). No more Sweet Home Alabama, no more, no more. Bruce, I'll miss you, for I too, was "Born in the USA" I held out for a long long time. This was my first ipod...and it was glorious. It lasted a week. RIP. Of course Kristen's response was, "Come on Jimmy, there's no way it was lasting the whole trip!" More importantly, I'm gone, so even if I could find a new one at a cheap price (this one was over half off), I ...

Like Rotorua, Taupo is a lake front town, however, Lake Taupo is massive claiming the title of NZ's largest lake. Since it's a fairly popular tourist destination, you will find every thrill seeking activity from skydiving to bungy jumping over Waikato river (largest river in NZ). We spent much of the day walking around ...

... up and went for an explore of the town and then headed down tot he lake shore and skimmed some stones and found our own pumice stone from the volcanic rock that lines the bottom of the lake. Then I got to do something i had wanted to do since my last visit to Taupo 4 years ago - whack golf balls at an island green out in the middle of the lake. Suffice to say I didn't get any on but i had a lot of fun ...

... Taupo. I climed the Tongariro volcano but decided my shoes were not good enough to go on top of the perfectly shaped and perfectly steep Mt Ngauruhoe volcano. It's one of those things I want to come back and do some day. My second and last day in Taupo was highlighted by me jumping off an airplane with a German attached to my back and a Kiwi flying around me and taking pictures and videos. It was an expensive and terrifying experience which gives you ...