Over Lake Taupo

At some point while we were in Rotorua, Julie, Raf, and I decided that we would go skydiving.

I’m not quite sure how this came about. I reckon it’s that I mentioned the next stop the group on the Stray bus was making was to Taupo and a lot of people were planning to skydive there. They had asked whether I would, and my answer had been: “Well, I’m not going there on this trip, but if I was, then I guess so…”

Somehow, this answer ended up convincing the three of us to call and book a jump for Sunday morning. After Julie made the call, we really weren’t sure what we had gotten into. Don’t people usually think about skydiving for months before deciding to go for it? Wasn’t I supposed to have weeks of sleepless nights as I prepared mentally for the experience?

Anyway, the call was made on the Saturday and we were scheduled to go up in the plane from the Taupo airport early Sunday morning – so long as the beautiful weather held out. I would then stay in Taupo and take a bus the following morning to attempt making the Tongariro Crossing (a very challenging 6-9 hour walk across the country round Mt Tongariro).

We spent Saturday afternoon enjoying many of the things the Rotorua area offers: Lady Knox Geyser’s eruption at Waiotapu; the splendors of a float in the naturally hot (and free!) Kerosene Creek; and, Zorbing! All of the above were wonderful, but we were so glad we went zorbing. I think we’d all first heard about this concept in an episode of the Amazing Race set in New Zealand. To zorb, you get zipped into a big plastic ball (filled with a bit of water if you like) and choose whether you want to roll down the hill in a straight line or a zigzag. We all opted for the zigzag route. It’s a lot of fun – you usually come out totally drenched and want to go down the hill again almost immediately!

We were back at the Crash Palace that evening and I think we slept surprisingly well considering that we were at least a bit anxious about the tandem skydiving awaiting us the next morning.

We woke to a sunny, clear morning. And Julie and I wondered again what we had gotten ourselves into. The skydiving company had told us to call that morning to confirm whether the jump was still on – sometimes the weather is different in Taupo, or the conditions could just be too windy for skydiving.

Turned out that the weather wasn’t looking so hot and sunny in Taupo – to our temporary relief, the skydiving was cancelled. We were told to call back 30 minutes before the scheduled jump time.

By the time we got to Taupo, it was raining quite steadily. And it was gray and miserable out. Julie and I didn’t mind, though. I think we were much happier to have a day wandering in the small, touristy town. It turns out that there is even a Scannell St. in Taupo! This was a first for me. It also turned out that the weather didn’t look promising for the Tongariro Crossing – being able to do the walk is an extremely weather-dependent activity, so I decided it was a better idea to drive back to Auckland with Julie and Raf and head up to the Bay of Islands instead.