On the 23rd of Oct we made our way to Taupo on the Magic Bus and made a few interesting stops on the way. The first was to some bubbling geothermal mud pools and then see Lady Knox geyser errupt, which does so at 10:15 AM every morning which was pretty cool. Then we went on to Waiotapu where we saw several geothermal pools and craters - you can see one of the pools in the picture! The smell of the sulphur was pretty overwhelming and we had to run down a few of the walkways!! After this we went to see Huka falls which runs through a fault line and aparantly the equivalent of 100 family sized swimming pools flows over this every minute! It is the beginnings of Waikatu River which is the longest in NZ......few boring facts for you there! haha. When we got to Taupo we had a wander round and checked out the lake which is bigger than Singapore!! The next day we lazed in the sunshine for a bit, i wrote in my journal on the balcony of the hostel, Fran did a sky dive and I decided to do a bungy jump over the lake!! At 47 metres i thought i was going a bit insane but it was really cheap to do it and you know how i love all that adrenaline stuff so i thought why not!! It was awesome!! so good in fact that i went for a second one and that time i got dipped in the water!! cooled me off somewhat! i was on a high after that it was so good....and dont worry mum i survived without any injuries! haha. we're in Wellington now which is our last stop before we move on to the south island! ill up date this again soon. hope you are all well at home!! thanks for all your messages, haha woodsy im afaid i havent had anything that exciting yet with being on a budget but the hokey pokey ice cream is amazing!!! love you everyone xxx