Sweet as......... I found the sheep
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2007
1
28
50
Trip End
Nov 11, 2007
River Valley,
New Zealand
Saturday, October 6, 2007
We left Taupo this morning - didn't really think that Taupo was that great. Its supposed to be the adventure capital of the north but other than skydiving there wasn't much advertised. I so regret no doing the skydiving though - we watched the dvds of all the people that did skydiving and I wanna do it but there are more opportunities on the south island so I'm hopefully gonna do it there. The only good things about Taupo was the hostel that we stayed in. It was called Urban Retreat Backpackers and was really cool - the rooms were pretty average but the communal areas were great and the bar was really cheap ($3 for wine and $10 for a jug of beer or snakebite) so everyone got pretty trashed
river valley
.we headed out towards the mountains today - there are three huge mountains one is Mt Ruaphehu which erupted last week and one is Mt Doom from Lord of the Rings which also has a Maori name which I can't remember and definately can't spell! and one other. We were gonna do a 2hr hike round them but the weather was rubbish again and there is still quite a high chance that Mt Ruapehehu might erupt again so viewing from a distance was probably a safe option although they are still skiing on the lower slopes of the mountain. So I have no idea whether it actually looks like Mt Doom as I've never seen the Lord of the Rings but I'll watch it as soon as I can get my hands on the dvd's cheaply!!
We had lunch in a makeshift cabin style shelter at the base of the mountains today which was cool. Everyone chipped in $5 which meant we could have a good lunch - well fresh roast chickens, fresh bread and salad which is better than the rubbish you can get in the cafes here - New Zealanders love pies any time of the day so most cafes are full of them! I guess the outdoor lifestyle here keeps people trim cos its not their healthy diet!!
We've come to a place called River Valley today which is what Kiwi call their Wilderness stop over - its an amazingly beautiful place in the middle of nowhere beside a river which is grade 5 for white water rafting
river valley
. Its a wooden building housing the main dorms which they call the orgy dorm because the beds are all right next to each other so you get to know the person you're sleeping next to pretty well!! The drive here was beautiful too all through what we would call mountains but what they call hills in New Zealand. Tomorrow I'm going Horse Trekking for a couple of hours which should be amazing then we head on down to Wellington tomorrow afternoon ready to hop on the ferry to the south Island.Went for a fantastic Trek as well up in the hills...
I'm so lovin New Zealand its awesome....
Comments
me again!
i laughed at the picture of you and turk, i've never seen you on a horse before!!. it's been so nice reading this, i'm so glad you're loving it xxx