Got to Taupo and Climbed A Wall

Location: Taupo Cybercafe
Weather: Cloudy

Got a lift from Gerry's daughter and son-in-law to Taupo. This is the center of NZ, famous for having the biggest lake in the country, funnily enough it has the highly original name of Lake Taupo.
Stopped at the gushing turquoise rapids of Huka Falls on the way. Checked into the Rainbow Lodge Hostel - apparently the best in town and probably the best staff I've ever met.
The next day I decided to be very adventurous and go on a 1.5hour Horse trek through the woods. This was most enjoyable as I have never ridden a horse before. My horse was a browny grey filly called JayDee. On the way back the guide even let us trot most of the time(that means the horse ran a bit quicker) and even canter a few times!
After that I walked to the Craters of the Moon park which is basically another weird thermal area which smells a bit of sulphur and has steam rising everywhere and hissing bubbling sounds coming out of the ground or out of craters from the ground. I almost managed to con somebody into giving me a lift back to town, but gave up in the end and had to walk 5km back in the dark.


Next day (Monday) the Tongariro Crossing was closed (the same as Sunday) and so I decided to hang out with my friends Anke from Holland and Simon from Bristol. We went Rock-climbing on a climbing wall. This was a lot more strenuous and adrenaline pumping than expected, some of the ledges were impossible to scale or very difficult and you need to be very strong to do this. Also you are tethered to a rope controlled by somebody else so if you fall off, sometimes about 20ft up, you put your life in their hands.

Following this, the 3 of us went to the Hot Stream, literally a natural hot stream that runs into the ice-cold river that becomes the Huka Falls. You just go down and sit in the stream and relax.

By JamesReed on 12.04.04 @ 06:56 AM GMT