Today, after putting it off for several days we did the thing for which we came to Taupo - that's right, today we did a skydive.
15,000 feet!
60 seconds of free fall!
200 miles per hour!
I screamed virtually all the way down but more out of excitement than terror - overall I felt surprisingly calm and so did Ric, although he is complaining that it gave him an eyebrow headache. The worst bit was going up in a tiny plane, packed with ten other people and with your dive-master strapped tightly behind you knowing that the only exit was above the clouds. The first three seconds when you hurl yourself out and feel the rush as your body's fall is accelerating are pretty scary too!
Ric went first. While they were descending Ric's dive master Andrew asked him if he'd seen the viral email and news of the bloke in New Zealand whose parachute failed to open and who amazingly lived to tell the tale whilst filming the whole experience on his head-top camera.
Well, that guy was him! His parachute had only partially opened and he careered to earth saying goodbye to the camera but landed in a blackberry bush and got off with just a punctured lung, concussion and a broken ankle. Fortunately he told Ric about all of this long after the parachute was released.
After our skydives, we succumbed to the hard-selling sales girl and ended up buying the whole package (skydive, video, photos and a t-shirt) so we'll be able to show our friends and family for years to come! Was it worth it? Well it's a lot of money but I'm glad to have done it once.
After that we drove on to Rotorua passing through a bizarre Mud Pool on the way. You wouldn't last long in there! They bottle this thermal mud and flog it in the shops for at least $20 a pop!
It does wonders for your skin apparently.
Ironically, well when you consider than Rotorua is sitting on boundless supplies of natural water, the tap water here tastes more stagnant or treated than anywhere else. Ric is quite a water connoisseur and notices these things acutely.
20/03/09
We finally saw a kiwi today. It wasn't in the wild or anything but at the Kiwi Encounter Centre here in Rotorua where they hatch wild eggs and reintroduce them to the wild once the birds are 1kg. Only 5% of kiwi survive to adulthood because of all the predators (especially stoats) which the Europeans brought over. So this conservation programme, although not an ideal solution, gives them a far better chance.
They are quirky little creatures and we learnt lots about them. If you took away their bill they would look a bit like fat rats. The can't fly as they have dense bones and a totally useless wing formation, they don't have a tail, their nostrils are at the end of their bill rather than near their eyes like other birds, their 'feathers' are really more like fur, they mate for life and once their eggs have hatched the parents naff off and leave them totally to their own devices with just a week's worth of yolk inside them to keep them going.
We didn't spend much longer in Rotorua. The various hot baths and spas are nice but it's not a very attractive town and feels a bit dodgy. I did go for a great massage at one of the thermal spas which is affiliated with a hospital and that was fantastic. Don't understand how Ric doesn't enjoy massages.
The occasional but very strong wafts of eggy sulphur smell all around the town amused us.
After Rotorua we thought we'd squeeze in a couple more destinations so went back south a bit to The Lady Knox Geyser and Waiotapu Geothermal Wonderland which is a large thermal park full of truly bizarre geysers, bubbling ponds, smoking earth and colourful rock. It was extremely popular and well worth the $27 ticket price. Every day at 10.30am one of the staff pours a soap-like but biodegradable substance in to the geyser to set it off for the crowd...it goes crazy!
Apparently this explosive characteristic was first discovered by inmates who tried washing their clothes on the site as the prison facilities were so terrible. What a shock they must have had!
22/03/09
Waihi beach was our next stop, the last before Auckland. It is a gorgeous sandy stretch of the Coromandel coastline and was warm and relaxed. The holiday park right next to the beach was by far the best we have stayed at - the swimming pool was opened by none other than the previous Prime minister! We have generally found the Top 10 resorts excellent. So much for roughing it on the road-side!
When we went in to Waihi town the next day we inadvertently stumbled upon a gold mine, a massive pit in the middle of town! So the next day we went on a tour which gave us a bit of background about the place. I never thought I could get excited about a mine but it all looked so impressive - their diggers are huge!
24/03/09
On to Auckland. There really is nothing much to say about Auckland except that it is a big, sprawling city with a tall tower and loads of tricky motorways and raised freeways to navigate. We didn't even bother exploring it before we handed our van back to Jucy Rentals (all in tact thankfully) and flew off to Los Angeles where we would experience the 25th March 2009 for the second time because of the time difference!
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