FACT - At 616 Km2, Taupo is the largest lake in Australasia and is big enough to fit the island of Singapore in it. If you wanted to.
Day 7. Waitomo - Taupo
With the morning's caving adventures over, and our hot soup and bagel sitting happily in our stomachs, we went off on the bus and headed towards Tongariro National Park. As we arrived in Taupo, we could see the national park in the distance. Alot of the filming for Lord of the Rings was done here. Ngauruhoe (Na-ru-hoe-e), the cone shaped mountain, was more famously known as 'Mount Doom!'
Before we arrived at our hostel, we stopped for a walk at the Huka (Foam) Falls. They are situated on the Waikato River, just 2Km noth of Lake Taupo and are 11 metres high. The falls were formed by an earthquake and are completely natural. And really mesmorising to watch, with the water being just so blue. Once all pictures had been taken we hopped back on the bus and it wasn't long before we arrived at our hostel. Booking in to these hostels always took a little while as all of us, plus perhaps another bus load were dropped off at the same time. Me and Sarah stuck together so we could request being in the same room again. We got our keys, heaved our backpacks up to the third floor and were rather excited to find our room with just the 1 bunk bed in it! Sharing in a six or eight bed dorm is fun, and you get used to sharing with so many people. And actually I liked it because you start talking to someone different each time, but in situation where you've just paid for an 8-bed dorm, and actually get one to share with just one other person occurs, it's a good time! It's just a bit more relaxing and you can unpack your backpack and leave things out.
Anyway the plan for our 'free day', for the following day was to do the Tongariro crossing. It was on my list of things I wanted to do. I'd been told it was a real physical challenge and I hadn't really done any trekking since Asia. It boasted stunning scenery and volcanic activity and is classed as one of the top 10 one-day walks in the world. But we found out that it had been cancelled for the next day due to weather warnings. I was pretty disappointed, but I guess it's better to be called off then be blown off a volcano by rather large gust of wind. These things do happen for a reason afterall...
I popped in to a shop to get my photos put on to DVD, to find out that they too had all been lost. I couldn't believe it had happened again. All my NZ pictures so far. I was so gutted. By this time is was evening so I got myself ready and met up with some of the girls I'd been chatting to for a drink. Which turned in to quite a few drinks and then quite a few more. I hadn't had a drink like that for a very long time and after quite a bit of dancing with lovely people from my bus, and a succesful game of pool with my two Swedish friends, I took myself off to bed.
With the morning's caving adventures over, and our hot soup and bagel sitting happily in our stomachs, we went off on the bus and headed towards Tongariro National Park. As we arrived in Taupo, we could see the national park in the distance. Alot of the filming for Lord of the Rings was done here. Ngauruhoe (Na-ru-hoe-e), the cone shaped mountain, was more famously known as 'Mount Doom!'
Before we arrived at our hostel, we stopped for a walk at the Huka (Foam) Falls. They are situated on the Waikato River, just 2Km noth of Lake Taupo and are 11 metres high. The falls were formed by an earthquake and are completely natural. And really mesmorising to watch, with the water being just so blue. Once all pictures had been taken we hopped back on the bus and it wasn't long before we arrived at our hostel. Booking in to these hostels always took a little while as all of us, plus perhaps another bus load were dropped off at the same time. Me and Sarah stuck together so we could request being in the same room again. We got our keys, heaved our backpacks up to the third floor and were rather excited to find our room with just the 1 bunk bed in it! Sharing in a six or eight bed dorm is fun, and you get used to sharing with so many people. And actually I liked it because you start talking to someone different each time, but in situation where you've just paid for an 8-bed dorm, and actually get one to share with just one other person occurs, it's a good time! It's just a bit more relaxing and you can unpack your backpack and leave things out.
Anyway the plan for our 'free day', for the following day was to do the Tongariro crossing. It was on my list of things I wanted to do. I'd been told it was a real physical challenge and I hadn't really done any trekking since Asia. It boasted stunning scenery and volcanic activity and is classed as one of the top 10 one-day walks in the world. But we found out that it had been cancelled for the next day due to weather warnings. I was pretty disappointed, but I guess it's better to be called off then be blown off a volcano by rather large gust of wind. These things do happen for a reason afterall...
I popped in to a shop to get my photos put on to DVD, to find out that they too had all been lost. I couldn't believe it had happened again. All my NZ pictures so far. I was so gutted. By this time is was evening so I got myself ready and met up with some of the girls I'd been chatting to for a drink. Which turned in to quite a few drinks and then quite a few more. I hadn't had a drink like that for a very long time and after quite a bit of dancing with lovely people from my bus, and a succesful game of pool with my two Swedish friends, I took myself off to bed.
Day 8. A free day in Taupo
Overdoing the drinking is always a good lesson to not go and do it again. Especially this time. I think age is kicking in and I can't really handle it anymore. I woke up actually feeling fine. But also glad to not be sharing with a bunch of other people. I woke up completely naked, so was even more glad for only sharing with Sarah, who assured me that she hadn't seen any of my nakedness. ANYWAY! I'd woken up early to go and skype home. I was with home for about an hour and a half before I really started feeling rough. I said my goodbyes and took myself back to my room and back to bed. After a few more hours sleep I went and attempted some cereal but it didn't do much good so I had to go back to bed. I was so annoyed at myself for feeling so crap. I was in a beautiful town, with the sun shining bright (not sure why the walk was cancelled but never mind) and all I could do was lay in bed feeling awful. It took until about 6pm to feel ok to get downstairs and meet up with David. He had arrived that afternoon and we'd pre-organised to meet at my hostel at 6pm. And there he was. Nose in laptop as usual... he told me I looked rough. Thanks. We went for a walk around Taupo at my request, and I wanted to find a postbox to send a card to my mum and dad. But there were no postboxes anywhere. So we found the post office, which obviously was closed, but the post box was inside the locked doors! I slipped my postcard under the door, but then got paranoid that someone will read it so David tried to get it back but it had gone in too far. It did get home though.
That evening we decided to splash out a bit and go for a curry. So we stepped inside a restaurant, were seated and then legged it when we saw the prices. They were a little steep. David said he'd been told about another one round the corner. But when we found it, we realised it was owned by the same people as the first one, and the setting and ambiance wasn't near as nice, so we snuck back in to the other one. Our menus were still there so I think it went unnoticed that we'd made a dash for it 10 minutes before -not a surprise going by the 'I'm going to eat my arm' slow service! We eventually ordered, and then eventually ate about an hour after that. No joke. And the waiter really did have a stoop like Sméagol from LOTR. I don't think it was meant to be any sort of link. And the food didn't even taste like curry. My lamb rogan josh tasted like beef stew. Ah well, we had a giggle about it and then spent the evening in a really cold pub, where I beat David at pool AND darts. HA.
I had been half tempted to stay on in Taupo, seeing as I'd had such a waste of the day I had there. And I wanted to do that walk, but it had been called off for the next day aswell. I didn't really want to leave the pals I'd made already so decided to move on...
Overdoing the drinking is always a good lesson to not go and do it again. Especially this time. I think age is kicking in and I can't really handle it anymore. I woke up actually feeling fine. But also glad to not be sharing with a bunch of other people. I woke up completely naked, so was even more glad for only sharing with Sarah, who assured me that she hadn't seen any of my nakedness. ANYWAY! I'd woken up early to go and skype home. I was with home for about an hour and a half before I really started feeling rough. I said my goodbyes and took myself back to my room and back to bed. After a few more hours sleep I went and attempted some cereal but it didn't do much good so I had to go back to bed. I was so annoyed at myself for feeling so crap. I was in a beautiful town, with the sun shining bright (not sure why the walk was cancelled but never mind) and all I could do was lay in bed feeling awful. It took until about 6pm to feel ok to get downstairs and meet up with David. He had arrived that afternoon and we'd pre-organised to meet at my hostel at 6pm. And there he was. Nose in laptop as usual... he told me I looked rough. Thanks. We went for a walk around Taupo at my request, and I wanted to find a postbox to send a card to my mum and dad. But there were no postboxes anywhere. So we found the post office, which obviously was closed, but the post box was inside the locked doors! I slipped my postcard under the door, but then got paranoid that someone will read it so David tried to get it back but it had gone in too far. It did get home though.
That evening we decided to splash out a bit and go for a curry. So we stepped inside a restaurant, were seated and then legged it when we saw the prices. They were a little steep. David said he'd been told about another one round the corner. But when we found it, we realised it was owned by the same people as the first one, and the setting and ambiance wasn't near as nice, so we snuck back in to the other one. Our menus were still there so I think it went unnoticed that we'd made a dash for it 10 minutes before -not a surprise going by the 'I'm going to eat my arm' slow service! We eventually ordered, and then eventually ate about an hour after that. No joke. And the waiter really did have a stoop like Sméagol from LOTR. I don't think it was meant to be any sort of link. And the food didn't even taste like curry. My lamb rogan josh tasted like beef stew. Ah well, we had a giggle about it and then spent the evening in a really cold pub, where I beat David at pool AND darts. HA.
I had been half tempted to stay on in Taupo, seeing as I'd had such a waste of the day I had there. And I wanted to do that walk, but it had been called off for the next day aswell. I didn't really want to leave the pals I'd made already so decided to move on...
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