The first thing we noticed on arrival into Taupo was the abundance of watering holes, already we had a good feeling about this place. The second thing we noticed was a lake that could of been the ocean, it was simply massive and stunning.
Here we knew that we were going to jump out of a plane as it is one of the largest drop zones in NZ - and the cheapest hence why we did it here. The first day we decided to dive in and see what the town's night life had to offer - cant really remember what exactly it offered but it made our heads hurt in the morning.
The beauty about Taupo was the Super Loo (that is it's name) you paid 20 sents to get in and they had showers and very clean facilities so for once we had no excuse for smelling. The second day we picked up our balls and booked the Sky Dive - quite a surreal experience because to many this is like signing your life away. Due to fearing for our lives we decided to go for a fancy italian meal to take our minds off things - it worked, the wine was great!
Judgement day - as we approached the meeting point for the mini bus to take us away we noticed some familiar faces, Tom and Dave were waiting to do the exact same thing as us - small world. After having some booking troubles where Pete had become an Irish ginger dreadlock guy called Derrick (dont ask), we got to the air field where we waited . . . . and waited . . . slept (pete) . . . and waited. As we got kitted up we met the two girls we were jumping with and the team, everyone was really cool. when we were loaded onto the plane, which was really small and bright pink, the experience still felt really surreal and i dont think it registered what we were doing untill that little green light came on. We had flown loads and were used to the views but now we were sitting on some blokes lap as he strapped us to him and nudged us to an opening door one by one. As we sat on the edge with our legs dangling out of the plane at 12,000 feet things still did not register untill "ok can you tilt your head to the side for the exit photo" and then it it finally clicked that we were going outside for a little stroll. The guy asked us to put our head back as he nudged towards the door and then "go"! Our heads flew forward as we were suddenly hurtling towards the ground reaching speeds of 200KMH +, how the hell are we expected to keep our head back when you cant see where you are falling. As we spun round watching the plane leaving us all we could think about was the fact that were falling and thats it but once our intestines got back in the right place and out speed stabilised the views are simply breath taking and the free falling sensation was amazing. We were free falling for roughly 45 seconds which although is not that long it felt like it was ages and then suddenly you get your second sign the parachute is coming out. You go from horizontal to vertical in seconds and a sensation I can only describe as being lifted by your nuts - lovely. After being spun around (like extreme tea cups) we landed and the experience was over and even though we felt violated due to the price of the pictures and DVD we thought it was worth every penny and we would recommend it to all of you.
Seen as we were very glad to be alive we decided to get royally trashed. We met up with Dave and Tom and went to their campsite to join them and a couple of others for a game of Uno and alcohol. One thing lead to another and we ended up in the middle of Taupo city centre at 4 in the morining getting a lift of some woman. We thought we were just going to climb into her car and get dropped off but there were two other girls (Shrek look-a-likes) in there and the lady had decided we were hungry so after driving around randomly and being taken to McDonalds we eventually got home. Something was not right about the woman especially seeing as she had a Chiwowa in the front seat.
The following morning started interestingly. Dave was just standing outside of our van in his swimming shorts, he did not say a thing and did not need to. We were parked opposite a fast flowing river and Dave wanted to get rid of the hangover, so we followed. It was freezing. See photos.
After a day of doing nothing we decided the next day we were going to do the tongorio crossing (Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings) however the weather was awful as we got further up the mountain. We were climbing through cloud and so it was freezing and very wet, plus you could not see a thing which was defeating the purpose of the walk as we were'nt doing it for our health. We got about 3/4 of the way up and then turned around as the weather was starting to get worse - sad times.
Straight after we said goodbye to Tom and Dave and went on to Fielding.
