We left the Tamaki Maori village at about
8.30am and headed to Te Puia which has the largest geyser in the southern hemisphere. We wandered around for a while with our tour guide who showed us some traditional Maori crafts (carving and weaving) and cooked us an egg in on of the geothermal hot pools, and then we watched the geyser erupt. It was pretty impressive.
After that it was back on the bus to head down to Taupo. We stopped briefly at Huka falls which is probably my favourite waterfall I've ever seen. The water flowed so fast and was incredibly powerful, it was amazing to watch.
We checked into our hostel (Base Taupo) and then I hopped into a limo which took me to an airport by the lake where I did a tandem skydive. The views were absolutely beautiful going up in the plane, which did not make the jump out any less scary at all, but I am glad that I did it. I think I enjoyed it more than I did my solo jumps, but I'm not sure I'd do it again (although I did say that last time so who knows). I can't wait to show you all the video, its not as bad as the other one, but my face on the exit is pretty funny.
In the evening I got a pizza to celebrate living through the day and then we all had an early night ready for a very early start and a very long day.
We were up at 4.45 the next morning ready to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. The crossing is a 19.4km walk up and over a volcano, past the emerald lakes and the blue lakes and back down. Its voted the best day hike in New Zealand and, having now done it, I can see why. We left our hostel at about 5.30 and started the walk at about 7, so we got to watch the sun rising over the mountains from the bus which was pretty spectacular.
The climb was difficult and took about 3 hours to get to the top but I think it was worth it (depending on how achey I am
tomorrow morning). The views at the top (and actually all the way up, across and back down for that matter) were absolutely stunning, some of the best we've seen on the trip for sure. It then took us about 4 hours to get down from the summit, and involved more ups than we were warned about and definitely more than we would have liked. We got back to the coach just before 2 and we had to wait for about an hour and a half to leave which was not ideal.
We arrived back to Taupo just before 5, got a well deserved McDonalds and headed back to the hostel for a shower and a very long sleep. I'm now in bed post walk, and I'm a bit achey but I have a feeling I will be worse
tomorrow!
Tomorrow we are off to stay in a cabin in River Valley, which is supposed to be beautiful and quite peaceful so I'm looking forward to that! Sorry I've been so slow on updating the blog, the wifi in hostels is expensive and patchy so I'm not always able to update! Will do it when I can though, the next chance is probably in about a week or so.
