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We were treated to a bit of a lie in for the second departure in a row as we left Taupo at 9.30am! It was my first day on the bus with Poncey the bus driver, and in actual fact he was really good, a lot better than Ma my previous driver! Poncey seemed to have everything under control and he was up for a laugh yet was knowledgeable and always let us know what we were going to be doing for the day! I also got on the bus only knowing one person who had also stayed in Taupo for a few nights, who I had met a few nights prior, but I soon started to make new friends once I got chatting to people on the bus!
Once we got going we drove around the eastern shores of Lake Taupo, and stopped off at a lookout point over the whole of Lake Taupo and the surrounding area then we went to Turangi (Two-Rangi) the trout fishing capital of New Zealand, to get lunch supplies and also a story on the background and history of Turangi from Poncey!
After this we headed into Tongariro for one of the many walks that we do on the kiwi bus! Tongariro National Park is New Zealand's oldest National Park, one of New Zealand's World Heritage Areas and the fourth one created in the world! The walk of Alpine nature offered a unique opportunity to explore native bush and waterfalls in the volcanic region! A lot of filming from the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy look place amongst the scenery, but having never seen any of the films, I can't say I recognised any of it, but a fan of the film may have recognised the surroundings! The walk took about two hours to complete but that did include a lunch stop in front of a 50 metre waterfall which was spectacular and totally made the walk worthwhile! The Tongariro National Park is dominated by three large volcanoes, Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro! Mount Ruapehu captured world headlines in 1995 when it burst into life, blasting a plume of ash and dust 12 kilometres into the atmosphere and emptied Crater Lake! A lahar and a small eruption took the headlines by storm in 2007. Ngauruhoe has had several small eruptions while Tongariro has been dormant since 1927, but the National Park takes its name from this volcano!
We then headed to the Western side of Ruapehu passing through a groovy little village called Ohakune and Whakapapa (Fa-Ka-Papa), which said with the right pronunciation can cause a few giggles amongst the kiwi bus, as most of us on the bus are a little immature about things like this as the majority of us are on are gap year and from Britain! Our next stop was in a place called Waioru, this was our last chance of buy food supplies before River Valley, but there was no supermarket there so we had to get all our stuff from a petrol station which had had very limited supplies, I had intended on buying pasta as I had some pasta sauce of me, but the petrol station had such little goods that they didn't even have pasta, so I had to settle for a couple of packs of expensive noodles and some bread for my lunch for the next few days! I could have had dinner at River Valley but no one else on the bus was taking up this option as it was NZ$15, so I thought there's no point in me being the only one on the bus to have it! An hour's drive later, after leaving civilization and passing numerous fields full of sheep and cows, and passing around multiple winding roads we entered the remote and green surroundings of River Valley Adventure Lodge, which was literally in the middle of nowhere, I had spoken to many New Zealanders about my itinerary around their country and not a single one of them had ever heard of River Valley mainly because it is just that one lodge and that is all there is in the place! The Rangitikei River runs past the front door. The location usually offers some activities, including horse trekking, a nine hole golf course pitch and putt style and rafting down some amazing rapids, however on our visit to River Valley the rapids were not so amazing, purely because it had not rained in that part of New Zealand for such a long time that there was a very low water level in the river which meant that we were not allowed to do any rafting there as the water level wasn't high enough, although they did offer fun kayaking down the river.....for the same price as the rafting which was laughable really that they wanted the same amount of money, which is why nobody did it! The other two activities took place the following morning however as when we arrived it was about 4.30pm, so once we had settled in, a few of us lads got a football from the hostel and had a cheeky game of five a side on the front lawn until it got dark, when we could no longer see the ball so thought it was a good time to call it off, which was the case after next goals wins, we won!
The story of River Valley goes back half a century, when the area that is now the Lodge was the back of a family farm. The owners at the time, Brian and Robin Sage, parents and parents-in-law of the present owners, Brian and Megaw, had a dream of sharing his beautiful location with other people! In 1978 an American river guide came through and suggested that the Rangitikei would be a great river to raft - and he was right. Today it's one of only a handful of grade 5 rivers commercially rafted in New Zealand (when there's enough water in the river). It is famous for its steep and technically demanding rapids. Kiwi experience found this place 13 years ago and have been going back ever since!
After our quick game of footie, we went back inside the Lodge at around 6pm and chilled out in front of the log fire on the sofas, whilst I was on my net book! After this I went into the small, and cramped kitchen which had very few facilities to make my dinner for the night, it was quite busy in there are it was tiny and everybody on the bus was cooking as nobody ate the meal they offered, this meant there was a fair amount of competition for the facilities, I stuck my noodles into a pan and put some hot water in and waited for ages for the hob to get hot and bring the water to the boil, it took about 20 minutes for my 2 minute noodles to cook and I realised that I put too much water in them as they were so soft and really quite horrible as they were over cooked, but they gave me a big plateful and I had a couple of pieces of toast with them, but it still didn't fill me up as noodles tend not to be the most filling food which is why I usually stick to pasta!
There was only the Kiwi bus staying at the Lodge but there was literally nothing to do there, however it was a nice place and had a warm cosy atmosphere about the place! It felt like a local country pub, as they had a bar and were cooking traditional roast dinners plus it had a log fire and comfy sofas, and the place was kitted out in wooden interior! However with nothing to do, after dinner most of the kiwi bus sat together on the sofas and played the name game, this consists of everyone writing names of four famous people down on separate pieces of paper and then putting them in the same pot, plus everyone had to write their own name down on a piece of paper and then put that in a separate pot! There were about 20 of us playing the game and so to draw the teams fairly we pulled names out of the pot to see what the teams would be, there were 4 teams in total all with 5 players in each team! From here the first player in the first team would pull a name out of the pot and then describe the person on the piece of paper using whatever words they wanted except from the person's name, then the rest of their team had to guess who they were describing, once their team had guessed the name the person who was describing would be able to pick another name from the pot, each time you were allowed one pass so if you didn't know how to describe them you could move onto another name, each person had a time limit of one minute to see how many names their team could guess then they got a point for every name scored! After this it was the first person in the second teams turn, and so on until it came around to the first team again when the second person in that team would go and then the same thing happened with all the teams then it was the third person from each team, then fourth etc! This was the first round, the second round consisted of the same thing except you had to describe the person in only two words which made it a lot harder, but the names were the same so if you had a good memory from the last round and were paying attention it made it a lot easier! The third and final round consisted of everyone not being able to use any words at all to describe the name on the paper, we just had to act it out, which was by far the hardest round, that was the final round however, so after we had all had an equal amount of turns we added up the scores to find that my team came a very respectable third....podium finish....out of four! It was a really enjoyable game though and passed the night away, it was also good for bonding with everyone else on the bus as the driver was playing as well!
After the name game most people went to bed as it was getting late by this point and we were running out of ideas about what other games we could play, plus we were all shattered! The dorms at this hostel however were laughable, nevertheless an experience! It was a 32 bed dorm which on the face of it sounds a little bigger than usual but still manageable, then we found out there were no bunk beds and the dorm was basically just one big room, with a raised level like a stage made out of wood, then another wooden level above that, which there was a ladder to use to get up! We had to grab a mattress from the side of the room, which were as thin as a piece of paper and very narrow then sling it on top of the wooden level wherever we could find room, so basically we were like a tin of sardines, all crammed together, with the mattresses side by side, with no dividers, and a person of either side of you! I was quite lucky however as I managed to get two mattresses which made it more comfortable and I also set up camp in the corner which meant I had something to lean on, but most others weren't so lucky and had a very uncomfortable night's sleep, basically on top of each other, so it was definitely an experience I won't forget, surprisingly I had a good sleep as well! We weren't given a duvet either, so we had to hire one for NZ$3, which is what I did along with a couple of others of just freeze and chuck whatever you could find in your backpack ontop of you which the vast majority did! We got a pillow and a bottom sheet included and that was it!
Although there was not much to in River Valley, we made our own entertainment, in what was actually a very nice setting! The capital of New Zealand is calling me in the morning!
Miss everyone back home!
Love Toby xxx
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