Taupo
One of the activities Katie was most excited to do was a skydive and after lots of pestering, and the fact that Katie had braved up for the Waitomo caves, Sarah decided (only 2 hours before jumping) to sign her name up! We arrived into Taupo with only 20 mins to spend freaking out before a limo arrived to take us to the jump site. We had decided that 12,000ft was high enough to throw ourselves out of a plane and paid a fortune for a film and photos to have proof because we knew our parents wouldn't believe us! So we hopped into a bright pink plane, were each attached to our jump master and started to climb. Taking off was a strange sensation because you are sitting backwards straddling a bench but soon our minds were occupied by the gorgeous scenery. Once at 12,000ft there was no more time to panic. The door was rolled up and a dutch friend of ours fell out the plane before we were shuffled towards the door ourselves and manhandled out of the plane. Katie says her stomach dropped when Sarah fell out, but to be honest everything happened so quickly. First we had to "be a banana" with our head on the jump master's shoulder then it was a mere 45 seconds of free falling through the air while screaming your lungs out before the parachute was released. Your mind is completely overwhelmed as you tumble for the first 5 seconds or so, because you don't know which way is up, and then once you are in the star position you start to take everything in. Although it took some encouragement from the jump master before Sarah would let go of her harness and get into the star position...Then after the initial shock of the jump master loosening the harness (ie. you drop away from him slightly to make the decent more comfortable) we really started to appreciate the beautiful Lake Taupo and surrounding mountains. Neither of us had a particularly lady-like landing sliding onto our bums but we got up and the adrenaline rush lasted for hours.
It happened to be Pancake Day while we were staying in Taupo and so we made it our mission to find somewhere selling panckaes. Our hunt didn't take very long as the bar next door to the hostel were making $2 pancakes which we quickly took advantage of for dinner. Unfortunately, a small dinner and 2 for 1 drink deals made for a fuzzy head pretty quickly but we had an awesome night dancing and catching up with friends.
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| Naturally hot water flows through this stream and into a cold river. |
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| Its a great spot to just sit in! |
River Valley
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| Smoking volcano ( will it erupt soon?) |
On route to River Valley we stopped in the Tongariro National Park for a walk to the Taranaki Falls. Lots of filming for Lord of the Rings took place in the national park and it is also the site of Mount Doom (hopefully some people know this from the film because we didn't!) Walking in this area felt just like in the highlands so we felt a bit homesick, but soon we came across a fantastic waterfall and were back to feeling amazed by New Zealand. We arrived into River Valley lodge late afternoon where we met the eccentric staff and had a really yummy roast with lots of salad. Then the evening was spent teaching, learning and playing drinking games with friends from around the world.
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| Mount Tongariro |
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| Mount Doom |
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| Taranaki Falls |
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| River Valley |
Wellington
Time for the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. We met up with our friend Henriikka and decided to explore the world famous Te Papa museum. We spent hours wandering the 5 floors looking at Maori culture and earthquake displays, along with the largest squid on display in the world. We happened to be there during Chinese New Year celebrations and so we watched some kids' dancing displays and a few chinese dragons. The museum had free entry and free wifi so it's very popular with backpackers skyping home!
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| Colossal Squid |
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| Dragon dancers |
While wandering the waterfront we found some people jumping off the pier into the harbour which was quite fun to watch. A huge Maori guy had a knack of splashing everyone on the pier in a particular spot and it was funny to watch as group after group of tourists would turn up to watch the jumpers, get soaked and move away, only to make room for new unsuspecting tourists.
Later we headed to a bar to meet up with friends before checking out the Wellington nightlife. Turns out it's similar to home, where people dress up and wear heels, so us backpackers were easy to spot in our scaffy clothes.
One of the activities Katie was most excited to do was a skydive and after lots of pestering, and the fact that Katie had braved up for the Waitomo caves, Sarah decided (only 2 hours before jumping) to sign her name up! We arrived into Taupo with only 20 mins to spend freaking out before a limo arrived to take us to the jump site. We had decided that 12,000ft was high enough to throw ourselves out of a plane and paid a fortune for a film and photos to have proof because we knew our parents wouldn't believe us! So we hopped into a bright pink plane, were each attached to our jump master and started to climb. Taking off was a strange sensation because you are sitting backwards straddling a bench but soon our minds were occupied by the gorgeous scenery. Once at 12,000ft there was no more time to panic. The door was rolled up and a dutch friend of ours fell out the plane before we were shuffled towards the door ourselves and manhandled out of the plane. Katie says her stomach dropped when Sarah fell out, but to be honest everything happened so quickly. First we had to "be a banana" with our head on the jump master's shoulder then it was a mere 45 seconds of free falling through the air while screaming your lungs out before the parachute was released. Your mind is completely overwhelmed as you tumble for the first 5 seconds or so, because you don't know which way is up, and then once you are in the star position you start to take everything in. Although it took some encouragement from the jump master before Sarah would let go of her harness and get into the star position...Then after the initial shock of the jump master loosening the harness (ie. you drop away from him slightly to make the decent more comfortable) we really started to appreciate the beautiful Lake Taupo and surrounding mountains. Neither of us had a particularly lady-like landing sliding onto our bums but we got up and the adrenaline rush lasted for hours.
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