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So after gazing at the gloworms in a cold cave in Waitomo, it was off to Taupo, sort of the adventure capital of the North and famous for it´s massive volcanic lake. A lot of people on our bus went for the skydive because it´s supposed to be one of the better ones, in terms of over the lake, but after much deliberation we decided to save our skydive for Franz Josef over the glaciers in the south. It´s supposed to be the second most scenic skydive in the world (behind Everest which I won´t be doing any time soon) although I´m not sure who decides these things. Like those top 100 celebrity whatevers that they have on TV when they get people no-one has ever heard of who are apparently writers/journalists/comedians to comment. Anyway the problem with the Franz Josef one is that it gets called off more than half the time because of the weather. But we thought that if we didn´t luck out, we could always stay there a bit longer till we could do it since we had so much time. So instead we decided to do the Taupo bungy, as a warm up for Nevis to come in Queenstown. At 47m, the Taupo bungy is the highest one in the country that dunks you in water, into one of the rivers that drain lake Taupo. Somewhat unfortunately however, we arrived in Taupo on St. Patricks day, which meant a huge piss-up was on the cards, especially seeing as we had won some free drinks in a quiz on the bus on the way, being the geniuses that we are. So after a long heavy night in various Irish bars, we woke up a tad worse for wear the next day, and getting dunked in a river whilst attached to a piece of elastic didn´t seem like such a good idea. We then made the mother of all bad decisions and had all you can eat Pizza Hut for lunch about an hour before the bungy, which of course made us feel a million times worse. When we got to the bungy however, the surroundings were actually really nice and it all didn´t seem so bad. So up I went first, and before I had time to be nervous I was strapped in and on the edge of the platform with my arms out. Off I went and all I remember is being so taken back by the falling that I didn´t actually make any noise the whole way down. Then all of a sudden the river came at me really fast and I forgot to tuck my head into my chest like the guy said and face planted into the water (I went in all the way up to my ankles!!). I was lucky not to lose my contacts, as well as my vest which came off as I bounced back out and I just managed to grab in time. As I was bouncing around I realised that what I had just done was in fact f***ing amazing and I wanted to do again, all day. What hang over? Rich then jumped and let out what can only be described as a tarzan cry, and then Ben with a more chilling yet comical scream. As you can imagine there were a lot of high fives afterwards and we were on an unbelievable buzz, so we impulse bought the photo and CD package, which to be fair was done really well. So we admired our photos all the way to the next stop River Valley, where we decided we had had enough excitement for the last few days (luging, body-boarding, black water rafting, bungying, drinking, etc.) so gave the white water rafting there a miss (apparently River Valley is meant to be the best place to do it but ah well) and with the ol budget in mind as well. The place believe it or not is literally a river in a valley, with very hilly scenery with lots of sheep and a big river running through it all. It kind of reminded me of Scotland. Me and Rich went for a quick dip, and christ this water put that at Cathedral Cove to shame. It was the coldest water I have ever been in in my life! My body literally shut down and god knows where my genitalia went. Of course Ben pussied out because he didn´t want to get cold. But strangely afterwards I felt like a million bucks, really refreshed and healthy (although that didn´t stop some silky Scandinavian lads putting a plethora of goals past me when I played in goal in the subsequent game of footy). Anyway, that night the bus driver Dillon, who if I haven´t mentioned was an absolute legend, got everyone involved in a drinking game involving hammering nails into a tree trunk which was pretty funny. We had planned not to drink for a bit after Taupo, but then we won another quiz haha! Yup, the people on the bus must have loved us by that point. We won a free pitcher of beer each and a shot, so so much for not drinking, and we spent the night banging nails and playing poker. After River Valley it was off to the capital Wellington. On the way we stopped off for a short but incredibly muddy trek in New Zealand´s oldest national park, the Tongariro National Park which has these 3 massive volcanoes. Apparently one erupted fairly recently and it was all over the news (who knew??), but the place is also where they filmed a lot of the Lord of the Rings, but I couldn´t recognise any of it because it´s been ages since i´ve seen any of the films. As for Wellington, the city itself is not as fancy and modern as Auckland I thought, but still it was good to be in a bustling city after a week or so of small villages. One stand-out aspect was the government building there, called the beehive, because it looks like exactly that which was pretty weird. Apparently some British architect thought of it when he was battered of his face one night, and you can tell, but still at least it makes it relatively interesting as far a government buildings go. Wellington is meant to be the cultural, arts and nightlife capital of NZ. So of course we decided to sample the latter first and dressed in our best (jeans not shorts, and a clean T-shirt) for a big night out down the street of clubs and pubs they have there. It was a pretty messy night and I have no recollection of the places I went, but it was good to see old faces from our original bus because people usually stay in Wellington for more than one night. So the next day we had to keep it cultural, visiting the Te Papa Museum, the highlight of which was the preserved giant squid they have there from the Antarctic depths and this massive interactive room where you can play around with photos and videos of yourself on this big screen (kind of like in Minority Report if you´ve seen it). Then we took the gondola up to the botanical gardens to get a decent view of the city and hang out with old folk admiring the roses, they couldn´t get enough of them! It was to be an early night that night after the festivities of the previous, and we had to get up at 6 for the boat over to the South Island, so we just watched a movie and pigged out in one of the numerous food courts scattered all over the city. But when we were waiting for the bus at that ungodly hour the next morning, the party was still going on in the bars and streets, making me wonder how long I had made it out till the previous night. Who knows. Next blog, South Island.
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