Taupo

Our next stop down the road was Taupo. It was beautiful. There was a huge lake and snow covered mountains and a waterfall and hot springs, it really had everything. It reminded me of Tahoe a lot, especially driving on the road around the lake seemed like the exact same road as the one around Lake Tahoe. We got in and I decided that I was going to go skydiving. Taupo is one of the most popular places to skydive, and they do the most dives out of anywhere else in the world, and its about $100 cheaper than anywhere else as well. And it is a very scenic place, so I figured this was the place to do it. I wasn’t one of those people that was super keen to go skydiving and have it on the top of their list as one of the things to do down under, but I was really happy that I went. I was a bit uneasy on the ground, but once the plane took off, I was allright. You get connected to a guy behind you that pretty much does everything and you don’t have to think about anything, and another guy jumps with you to film it on video and also has a trigger in his mouth to take photos with. I was second to last to go out and the guy scooted me up to the side of the plane and I was sitting on the edge and was pretty freaked out for a second, but then just got rocketed out and my brain went oh! Ok this is allright! And then it was just awesome. The freefall lasted 45 seconds (I jumped from 12,000 feet), and then you have a couple minutes of parachuting until you get to the ground. It was really a big rush, you feel all excited awhile after. The video is really funny too, they do a good job of editing it. The view was just amazing too, such a different perspective to see the world like that from above.

The skydive people were nice enough to drop us (me and some other backpacker friends from the Magic Bus) off at the Huka Falls, the waterfall on the outskirts of the city. We hung out there a bit and then walked back to our hostel, it took about an hour and a half and was a good walk. We went to this Irish pub for awhile and watched the rugby game, All Blacks vs. Munster (Ireland), and NZ won. We already knew this before we got there because the game was played that morning, but one girl with us is a diehard Munster fan and was still watching the game like maybe they would win. It was probably more entertaining watching her yell at the TV than watching a game were you already know the outcome. There is a lot of rugby going on right now, and NZ is cleaning up for sure. The All Blacks have two teams, one for Union and one for League, and they are just both dominating every other team they play.

The next day we got up really early and got bussed out to the base of these volcanoes to do the Tongariro Crossing hike. It is known as New Zealands best day hike and was pretty epic. It is 20 kilometers and you hike up this one volcano and then walk across the crater and then hike out of the crater and up the side of another one and then down a long way. It was a lot of fun, the views were amazing, and I got to play in the snow that was still up there. The Lord of the Rings was filmed on one of these mountains and I would think it would be quite a chore to get all that filming equipment out there, because it is definitely not a super easy hike. There are some pretty long climbs, ‘The Devil’s Staircase’ name of the first section might hint that it’s a bit rough going up. The group I was with was an interesting team to hike with. Two other girls, a German and a Scot, were pretty quick, but then we also had two Irish with us, and one had thrombosis which gave him blood clots in his legs, and I later found out the other slow girl has arthritis. So kudos to them for doing that trek, but wow, at some points you are just waiting for them and starting to get really cold when you stop for too long. It was all good though, we did get some longer times to check out the views, there were also some really beautiful lakes on the way down, really vibrant green color, and I got to meet some other people that you end up walking next to. At some points you could feel the ground and it would be warm, these volcanoes are still active and you can actually physically tell from the surface that there is some thermal action going on underneath you. One of the nearby mountains is the biggest skiing area in NZ, that's pretty sweet to be able to ski/board on a volcano. Some parts of the hike felt like being on Mars, especially when we were going through the crater. It definitely tired you out after trekking around for 6.5 hours, but was a very worthwhile hike, probably the best one I have done, just really amazing views and was a great way to spend the day. Had awesome canned spaghetti for dinner and hung out in the jacuzzi at the hostel. These New Zealand hostels really got it going on with these bonus additions I must say, I don't remember hardly any of the Aussie ones having such crazy stuff.

Pix: skydiving and Tongariro Crossing photos. The mountain in the last one was in Lord of the Rings at some point (not really sure, I haven't really seen the movies but some people were stoked on that), and the group one is when we just got to the top and feelin pretty accomplished. Note my clothes when compared to the others, yes I really did prepare well for this trip and totally packed such appropriate and insulated gear...