Taupo

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I was really excited to be moving on from Waitomo, and making my way down to Taupo on the bus. The time-miserly Kiwi Experience has scheduled 2 days in for Taupo, so I knew something good was coming.

We arrived at around midday at the sky-diving place. I'd been looking through their brochure on the bus, and was going to go for a 12,000 jump, with a dvd showing the freefall part of my jump, photos, and also a free t-shirt.

Sky-diving, no Tongariro crossing, Huka falls

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Unfortunately, when we turned up the weather was pretty bad, with a lot of low-lying cloud. We all signed the forms, and watched their video, to show you what to expect. Unfortunately then they said the weather would be too bad, and so we couldn't do the jump ! I was gutted :-(

We went to the Urban Retreat hostel, where I treated myself to a 4-bed dorm (I was sick of listening to other people's snoring, and fancied a few nights of decent sleep). Luckily there was no-one else in there, so I had it all to myself ! The luck didn't last however, as I was planning to do the Tongariro crossing the next day, and it wasn't going to be possible due to high winds. This was also gutting as its meant to be one of the best one-day walks in New Zealand, it lasts a full 8 hours, but goes past Mt. Doom, amongst loads of other things. Apparently there wre 100 kph winds over there, so that was a no go.

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The next day I'd booked onto the skydiving first thing in the morning. It ended up being quite a heavy night drink-wise, and I certainly was feeling a bit fragile as I came down to the hostel reception to find out whether we'd be jumping or not. The call came in that we;d be going ahead, so we trooped off, dressed up in the jumpsuits, and put some walnut-like headcaps on.

After that, we were wedged into the plane like sardines, choking on the petrol fumes, and took off. The flight seemed to lat for ages, but finally we got to 12k. The door opened, and before I knew it, the guy I was tandem jumping dangled me out of the plane, and we were off !

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The first 5 - 10 seconds were the worst, but after that, it felt really surreal, as though you weren't really falling at all ! After a cheeky bit of breast-stroke and front crawl for the benefit of the DVD, the parachute went and we glided down, with amazing views of Lake Taupo, and the mountains.

After all that excitement, we headed up  for a walk to the Huka falls. They really don't look like a waterfall, more like a long area of rapids. These were pretty cool, and a relaxing followup to the sky-diving earlier.