Napier - Taupo
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2006
1
87
156
Trip End
Aug 16, 2006
Taupo,
New Zealand
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The minibus took us back down the hill into the centre of town, so we could meet up with Scotty and the bus, I wondered if perhaps he regretted some of the stories that he'd told us last night, but he seemed full of himself as normal. Our initial plan was to head to Mount Maunganui, heading through Taupo and Rotorua again on the way. However in the hostel yesterday Lynne had found a set of weighing scales and was able to check if she was under or over the skydive weight limit. To her horror/delight she found that she was under the weight limit, although she didn't believe the scales to start with and went around several people asking whether they knew what their weight was and whether they'd mind hopping on the scales to check their accuracy. Although this question did get her some strange looks, after three people had stood on them, she had to accept that they were indeed accurate and that she would be able to do a skydive.
As a result of this, instead of going straight through to Mount Maunganui like we originally intended, we would spend a night at Taupo so Lynne could do a skydive, whilst I did the more hazardous job of checking in at our hostel. Lynne got dropped off just outside of Taupo and was picked up by the skydive company, at this point the sun was shining brightly over Taupo and the lake, so I was pretty convinced that in a few minutes time she'd be jumping out of a plane. However by the time I reached our hostel about ten minutes later, the sky had already clouded over considerably and after I'd ruptured myself carrying all the bags up to our room, the sun was no longer visible behind thick grey cloud. For some reason the tandem skydivers aren't that keen to jump out of a plane when the weather was like this, so whilst I was sat on the balcony section outside writing up my journal, I got the inevitable message from Lynne that her jump had been put on hold. As the weather forecast wasn't great for the rest of the day she was heading back to the hostel, but she had been booked back in for 7am tomorrow morning. So it was fingers crossed that the weather would be better then.
Unexpectedly we had some free time in Taupo and as we hadn't really looked around it properly last time, we took the opportunity to have a leisurely stroll around the town. The streets were full of people doing the same as us, I guess it was busier than normal because it was the equivalent of a bank holiday for Easter Monday. By chance we stumbled across another Breaker's bar and decided to pop in for a light snack. I didn't think that my body would be able to cope with a pint following last night's antics, but I surprised myself by easily polishing off a pint of Speights.
Around the corner from the bar, there was an internet cafe that Magic Bus passengers get a discount from, so we headed inside to catch up with things from home and updating our journals. We then headed to the local supermarket to get some things for our evening meal, we didn't realise that you had to purchase the plastic bags that you required for ten cents each as you entered the store. So we were rather taken aback when we got to the checkout and weren't given anything to pack our shopping into. Luckily we did have one plastic bag on us, so we stuffed everything we could into that and into our coat pockets before heading back to the hostel.
After cooking a typical backpacker meal (hooray pasta and sauce again!), we headed back to our room for an early night. I slept very well but I'm sure Lynne may have had a slightly disturbed night thinking that in a few hours time she'd be flinging herself out of a plane.
