Day 9. Taupo-River Valley
The next day was time to leave Taupo. It started off fairly sunny but as we left the area is became damp and miserable again. I use the word 'miserable' but everything we did, even when raining, was actually far from miserable. It was another disappointent though, as most of the day we were meant to be hopping off the bus for various walks. But we didn't. We did, however manage to go and see another waterfall. They didn't get boring, each one was so different. And some crazies amongst the bus load decided to get in to their swimmers and go jump off the waterfall. It was freeeeezing. I'd say that I don't think I could have done it, but of course I could have. But it may have taken me a few hours to psyche myself up for it, and I just plain didn't want to anyway. So I took pics with a few of the others. Afterwards Rich, our bus driver told us a story about when he had just started the job and took the group to the same waterfall and watched as a girl jumped in and didn't re-appear. Rich shat himself and jumped in after her but couldn't find her. She was fine though, she'd just managed to pop up somewhere completely away from the group. Didn't put him off taking people there though!
We also stopped at a museum linked to the national park, which was quite interesting. And then we headed right to River Valley. It was really raining by now. So once again, it kind of felt like brownie camp. It was a cute little place in the absolute middle of nowhere. With huge mountains around us and a river beside there was lots of scope for lovely walks. If it hadn't have been raining. The sleeping arrangements were a bit different too. The real cheapy one was a dorm for about 20 people. Basically it was one huge bed where everyone just bunked on. Luckily I bagged the next one up which was a normal, and extremely cosy dorm, for just 6 people. There was lots of offers of roasts, massages etc on the go. Me and a couple of girls - Lynssey and Clare booked ourselves for the roast and then went for a little walk around and then sat in the hot tub for an hour, which the 'spa' boasted. It was hot though. I mean Lynssey couldn't sit in it for the first 20 minutes because she went so red. And I have to say that when I popped back to the lodge to get us a drink, I did nearly pass out from being rather hot! But once you got used to it, it was lovely. And it had stopped raining by then and the view out in the open was gorgeous. After our burning soak and gossip about life at home, we settled for an evening of the best roast. Well not as good as home roast but it was still 'well nice'. And a quick update on the young shits of the bus... Rollo (the one who thought it fun to have a bag of wine under his arm the whole time) had run out of money. So much so that he even had to audacity to walk amongst the tables of people eating roasts requesting that we maybe give him any scraps. I might have almost felt sorry for him but he was pissed and still holding a rather full bag of wine under his stupid arm, so I really didn't. But the evening was pleasant and I had a brilliant long sleep.
Day 10. River Valley-Wellington
FACT - Wellington is located directly on a major earthquake fault line. The biggest earthquake was recorded in 1855 and measured 8 on the Richteer scale.
We didn't have to leave until midday the next day as there were a number of activities going on. Some of the group went horse riding and others did some white water rafting. This particular river was actually a grade 5 for rafting in NZ, which means it had lots of dangerous rapids I think! On the way to our next stop of Wellington, we drove through and stopped in a town called 'Bulls'. And what the town had cleverly done was play on the name and named a few shops after it e.g. 'Consta-Bull' (the town's police station) and other such names. It was quite a drive so we were told to ensure we had 'supplies' as we wouldn't be stopping until dinner time. This, as usual brought people in to a food buying panic like there was going to be a 7 year famin or something, and so we'd run to the nearest store and buy a week's worth of shopping just in case we went hungry... and I got used to this, but it still didn't change anything when Rich told us to make sure we had enough to eat. So quite a few hours later, and quite a few bellies full later, we arrived in windy Wellington, as it is known for. I was feeling quite 'hormotional' actually. Time of the month. I think it was a mixture of that and also it being the last night with most the people i'd made friends with. Wellington being the capital, most people stayed on as there's a few bits and bobs to see and do. But I still wanted to get on. I'd been to museums and botanical gardens and actually I preferred the non city stops so I didn't really want to stick around there even if it was the capital city. When I checked in I paid just $1 extra and got to go in the 'santuary' dorm. Basically it's just a dorm for girls. But you get a towel and some beauty products wrapped in it, along with a voucher for a free glass of champagne. Sold. The beauty products were actually from Aveda, which made me smile as that's where Mirella works. I'd arranged to meet up with David that evening as he was arriving there as well. He was staying on for another day though. I met him in my hostel and he immediately picked up on my hormotional mood which I was pretty impressed by. We went had some dinner in the hostel's rather clean kitchen and caught up on past day's activities. We also were very amused by someone's dinner of a carrot which looked rather lonely on the plate, waiting for it's probably hungry and skint owner to come and eat it. The rest of the evening was spent with some of my friends down in the hostel bar. The difference between my bus and David's bus was that my lot were all up dancing, laughing and being generally silly, and David's lot were sat down having rather conservative-looking chats. It was like someting you may see in a comedy sketch. Granted, an averagely funny comedy sketch. We'd had enough of hostel bars so me and David (I'm starting to feel like Posh spice saying that) went off to explore a bit of Wellington. Afterall I was up very early the next day so wanted to see a bit of it at least. We found a place putting on a gig and went and had a boogie until we decided to go for falaffel. I mean alot of time had passed since dinner. And I'd given up smoking so I think my need to eat increased by 500%. Can you get 500%? Anyway David has an amusing/embarrassing picture of me eating a falafel, which he's threatened to put on Facebook. It won't be going on here. But it was a fun night anyway.
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