Taupo (Day 3)

Day 3. We went to the ‘Craters of the Moon, which has nothing to do with the moon. Ha. Its where the thermal landscapes, steam vents and mud pools are. It was so hot, over 70 degrees C. Then we went back to the campsite to relax, and plunge into the River…

Then we met Rory & Joe, two guys from the Isle of Man, asked us if we wanted to join them on a river ‘cruise’ they had a few rubber rings and we had a body board, why not we thought. SO… for this we needed two vans, one to take us to the top of the river and one at the finish point to pick up the other van, so Rory drove to the city centre and we jumped in just after the bridge, the water was so clear, 3-4 metres deep and you could see all the way to the bottom, we drifted down the river, through a few rapids, (excellent) around a few small islands, (groovy) and we even drifted by the bungee jump, which stood 47 metre above the river, yes ok not that high but you get plunged into the water! Then about 2 hours later we floated by the hot springs which we had to check out!! It’s free and it was SO hot, just like a hot tub, it got even hotter by the waterfall, which Mikko was brave enough to try out! No one else could handle it! There was even a man and his dog (which loved stones) chilling out in the springs. After an hour or so, we got back into the stream (which then felt really cold) but we soon warmed up and ended up in the lagoon… right by our campsite. Mikko and Rory went to get the other van, and came back with lager and wine! Sweeeeet!

We got some tunes playing from the laptop through the amazing speakers in our van, when the inevitable happened, about 5 or so more people came over to join the party… beer in hand and we had a little celebration going on! We got up the next morning to jump in the river and have another drift down the rapids before Rory and Joe left for Auckland.

 LIVING THE DREAM