We've been staying in Taupo for a few days - a bit longer than planned as we like the place so much. The scenery is excellent - the town is right on the edge of a massive lake with snow capped mountains & volcanos in the distance. We also managed to find a really nice free campsite down by a really scenic river at the top of a fast-flowing waterfall. There's no facilities (no water or showers) but there are some in town we can use so it's not been much hardship.

The rain has stopped but the nights in the tent have been pretty chilly. Since the rain has stopped we've been a lot more active and we've been getting to see a lot more of NZ.

We got our first taste of some serious adrenalin sports at a place called rock 'n' ropes, which is a bit hard to describe but it's something like an assault course except it's done at the top of poles 20m high. You're attached to ropes the whole time so you're OK if you fall, but it's pretty scary walking along ropes or swinging from the 'vines' when you're that high up. The scariest one for me was 'the trapeze' where you had to climb up a 15m pole (like a telegraph pole) and then climb up and stand on the top of it with no supports or anything to hang onto and then jump off it and catch a trapeze suspended from a wire 5m away. I'm not particularly keen on heights, so it was quite a challenge for me, but I managed it none the less! After that we did an activity called the 'giant swing' which is a bit like a bungy, but the arc of the swing breaks your fall instead of a piece of elastic. You have to jump off a platform 20m up and freefall for a couple of seconds before the rope tightens and swings you away from the ground. Can't say it was a particularly pleasant experience!

We had originally planned to do a skydive the next day but our adrenal glands had taken a bit of a battering so we decided to do something slightly more sedate and went horse trekking instead. Neither of us had been on a horse before, so it was fun trying it out. It was a lot easier than I thought and I enjoyed the feeling of taking a country walk without having to put in any effort climbing up and hills!


As an antidote to that, the next day we went on the 17k Tongariro trek through the heart of the volcanic national park which was used as Mordor in the lord of the rings movie. It was unbelievably cold for the first few hours when we were ascending. We followed the track up through the clouds to about 1900m and at midday the clouds cleared and we got excellent views of the red crater at the summit and the green coloured lakes below.


We've now moved onto Napier, a town competely rebuilt in an art deco style after it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931. We're staying in a hostel which is really deco styled - it reminds me of an old cinema or something like that! It's a pretty town and feels like a medditeranian resort with the weather we're having at the moment. We managed to meet up with some friends from more work (Gylnn & Nikki) who are on holiday here at the moment. Was good to catch up with what's happening in EastEnders at the moment :)


We seem to have been really unlucky with various leakages in our car over the last week or so. Not only did the car itself leak but we also managed to spill or leak half a bottle of whiskey, meths, washing up liquid, sun cream, and a bottle of water. There's been some pretty nasty smells wafting through from the boot and chemical reactions seem to have eaten a hole in the parcel shelf. We'll be more careful to secure the caps on bottles in future......


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