Taupo

Heading on from Napier we hit Taupo, withing 20mins of arriving me and green were headed off to the airport to do our skydive while rastrick stayed in town. Upon arrival we got booked in and then they kindly showed us a dvd of a jump, as if we werent nervious enough already. After the dvd we got suited and got introduced to our foreign and insane tandem masters! Into our stupid looking dive outfits and they began to film us for our dvd's. We climb into the plane, a strange pink flimsy looking thing and then took off. We are all squeezed in the hold of this plane practically sitting on each other while the masters are going whooo and yeeeahh, and we just say uuuhhhh yeahhh, whoo. Green was first to jump and as the door slid open as 12000ft and he edged towards it his eyes bulged intensly, the plane banked and he drops out just like that. Im next and i get edged towards the door, seriously heavy breathing going on, im hanging out the plane, then we drop! I dont remember the first few seconds of tumbling. only when we are freefalling my master taps me on the shoulder and we outspread our arms and begin to look around. I can see Mt Doom from LOTR, Taupo lake and just about 100miles in all directions. Eventually the parachute opens and we cruise liesurely back to the airport. My legs were pretty shaky afterwards but im pretty sure im not going to forget that experience!

That evening we celebrated with some beers and i cant remember the rest.

The next day we headed off for some jet boating and a walk around a thermal park. Was pretty stinky stuff, the bioling mud pools were pretty cool, seriously hot water. You can get the jist from the photos, the return journey in the boat waas a bit insane with the driver doing 360 spins in 5 inches of water and at about 50mph.