Wellington - Taupo

Well again I was given the wrong time for the pick up this morning! I only had to wait for half an hour though and there was another guy who had been told the wrong time too so we chatted the time away!

Sarj was my driver again (I had him from Queenstown - Christchurch). There were only 7 of us on the bus and I got chatting to Kaye from Kent! She also likes LOTR and we had a good old chat about the locations and she has been lucky enough to work for Weta in Wellington so I was gleaning stuff about them from her as well! We stopped for brunch and a few of us had coffee and then back on the bus to Tongariro National Park. The weather was looking a bit dubious but as we got closer the clouds lifted and we were able to see Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngarahoe (Mt Doom)! We stopped at a layby to take photos and me and Kaye were jumping in the volcanic ash and taking silly photos of one another!

In taupo we dropped off one of the blokes skydiving and then we headed to Huka Falls! I've already been but it was nice to go back again when it wasn't raining! I noticed that the falls didn't seem as powerful as last time and found out that they control the flow of water which is why!

We then got dropped off at our hostels and said goodbye to Sarj. I'll miss Sarj as he played a full hour of Stereophonics for me on the way up!

That night I met Kaye and we went to the Fat Fish cafe for lasagna! We ended up in Breakers surf bar and played about 7 games of pool!