The Lake Taupo

... allowed. Poor guy, he’d bitten into his granola bar and had it taken away because they thought it was covered in chocolate. Mommy is going to be good and abide by the rules from now on. No more sneaking anything.

Despite the lunch box police, the kids had a great first day of school.

It’s dinner time now and I’m off to Dancing With the Stars with my ...

Endlich angekommen in der heissesten Gegend Neuseelands, zumindest was die Erde angeht. Unter mir brodelt es, was den Boden erwaermt und heisse Quellen zum Vorschein bringt, sowie Wasserdampf, der aus der Erde kommt. Zwischen dem Tongariro National Park und White Island (das sich nordoestlich von hier befindet) befinden sich offenbar eine Menge aktive Vulkane.
Unter dem verheissungsvollen ...

... did a few hour hike in the lower altitude areas but you couldn't really see much, as far as views go. Its too bad... this hike is one of the things that Will, especially, wanted to do. On the edge of these volcanoes they have a few ski areas. Its all based on 5000-10000 year old lava! There are signs up there with warnings of what do to incase there is an earthquake or an eruption... would be pretty scary being up there!!! We are now ...

... easy things [she] found impossible" Tramping (hiking), for example. Yes, I can jump off a bridge into questionable water, or hitch hike on a boat, but the idea of the Tongoriro Crossing gets my knees shaking, for many reasons. First, I'm not entirely sure I have ever walked for seven hours straight.... especially up some mountain, oi. I mean, when we go bouldering and have to walk up to the spot, I'm the kid who's gasping at the top (well, usually ...

... down the river a bit, then having to swim back. We were both fine, and it certainly added an element of danger to the experience. When we went back to the changing rooms, I opened up my life-jacket and found the silver fern still in place! I now carry it in my wallet. From here we went to Rototua, which has a very eggy smell. That's the smell of the sulphur from the geothermal activity. We went for a dip ...

... have to do this! Following that we paid a vvisit to Taupo Adventure Park. It's not Disneyland but by New Zealand standards, it's OK. This brought us to the end of all of our planed activities. We then had the choice of going home or staying one more night and then driving home tomorrow morning. We made the decision to miss the traffic and head back that afternoon. We got home around 9-10pm amazed at how much we had done in the few short days.

... the coast and then inland. It was a pleasant enough drive, but not a lot to see for a tourist! There was a distinct difference in the landscape, and fewer sheep than the South Island. There was also clearly a lack of the lupines that were ever-present on the South Island. They were replaced by yellow flowering trees, and hydrangea bushes with flowers from pale pink to deep blue, and flower clumps the size of Paul's head (that's big!) A little after ...

... another 30 seconds at which point he pulled the cord and the shoot opened up. Ergh ... The deceleration was incredible and after the groans and gasps for breath the peace was a bit of a shock! We then spent a happy 5 minutes (again it felt like only seconds ...) floating around looking at the view before I was instructed to lift my legs up (work those abs!) ready for landing. Our landing was brilliant! We actually landed on our feet, not of this landing on your bum business ...

... was quite impressive, it looked like another planet.



We walked past the 'Ink Pots', which were black pits of 100 degree water, then past some very weird-named hot pools, and some pits of boiling mud...





...before doing a short 'bush walk' through the forest ...

... et tenter notre chance ailleurs.





Notre activite principale a Taupo a ete le rock'n'ropes. Nous avons passe environ 2.5 heures a grimper sur des pilones en bois et se jeter dans le vide attache par la taille a 15 metres de haut. C'etait bien marrant. Ca nous a fait reflechir en revanche a notre envie de faire du saut a l'elastique. 15 metres ca ne parait pas etre grand ...