I had a much needed lie-in this morning, no alarm, bliss! After spending some time online uploading photos I checked out the FAQ's for the tandem skydiving in the area and found to my disappointment that the maximum weight for a dive is 100kg's. Back in December, before I left for my trip I weighed in at 113kg's, massively overweight! (Thats years of being lazy outside work and too much boozing/junk food for you!) I was fairly sure I'd still be too heavy, so found somewhere in town to weigh myself... 103kg's. So I've actually lost quite a bit since the start of the year, but am still to heavy to jump. I'm not going to let it get me down though, instead I now have a new mission... lose weight to jump! I am seriously determined to jump here in NZ, I've wanted to do it for many years, and there is no way I am missing out on it in one of the best destinations in the world for it! So, beer and snacks are off the menu, period. If I love the skydive, as I suspect I will, I will be seriously tempted to take the course here to get qualified to jump solo internationally, as it is one of the cheapest places in the world to do that, and the scenery here is an obvious draw! However, taking the solo jump course requires even more weight lose... doh! I had to do it some time, and at least now I have a goal (apart from the obvious one of living a longer and healthier life I mean... lol! ;-)). My initial thought when I realised I was too heavy to jump was, hang on a minute, surely heavier people are better at 'falling'?! I'd be a natural... lol
In the afternoon I went to see the Craters of the Moon, just north of town. This area only came to be when the dam was put into the Waikato River at Aratiatia, as the water contents changed under the ground nearby, this are began to collapse and thus the craters were born. They are natural craters which have hot pools and mud pools bubbling away in them, and the whole area is steaming and active. There are warnings all over it to stay on the paths and even those aren't wholly safe as the ground keeps moving and changing. It was a cool place to see, especially as some of the large craters have little islands in them with foliage all over it, even though there is a bubbling pool of mud in and around it! It was another decent walk too, with some nice steep steps up one side of the valley which were welcome more than ever in light of my findings earlier in the day! ;-)
I went down into the town after this and had a good wander around to familiarise myself with the place and to scope out some good equipment shops as I needed to get some better hiking boots, water proofs and maybe some thermals for the colder walks and the colder nights in the van. This is the only problem with coming here to New Zealand in winter having been only to warm countries so far and carrying the smallest possible bag. I need to buy everything I need now, and once I leave New Zealand I won't need any of it as I'll be hitting warm climates again for the rest of the trip! Still, at least I'll have some nice walking and wet weather gear at home once I've shipped this stuff before I leave NZ. Lol.
I'll definitely be back in Taupo before I leave NZ from Auckland. The place has a nice feel about it, and I really want to jump here... I would also like to take a helicopter trip over the lake and mountains too.
Pictures are here
