Day 41 – Tour De Taupo

After the biggest and best sleep in we have had in a long time we were all set to go paintballing but unfortunately it was all booked up for the day. Mike and I taught about going back to sleep again but since it was such a lovely day it would have been a shame to waste it. We decided to rent four mountain bikes and take in the beautiful scenery that this city has to offer. We were told yesterday by the skydive team that today wouldn’t be as nice as yesterday but the fact that we poured on the sun cream shows just how hot it was!!! Once we got the bikes (wearing our cool helmets of course) we decided to head to Huka Falls. We were all over the shop with the bikes and just cycled wherever we wanted, going against the traffic, going with the traffic, cycling on the foot path and nearly cycling into pedestrians….we taught we were great but I’d say everyone was cursing us under their breath!! It was like that scene from ET where all the boys are giving it socks on the bike, but we had no ET with us, only Mike (that’s about as extra terrestrial as it got)! After getting away from the main roads we hit a beautiful park called the “Spa Thermal Park”. We had a go on the Zip line before making our way to the Waikato River and I went into a naturally hot bathing pool. It is quite weird having one of these right beside a river but I wasn’t complaining as I was relaxing in the bathing pool and taking in the glorious views of the forest in the distance. This truly is the life!! After almost instantly drying off as soon as I got out of the water it was time to hop on our bikes again and head up a mountainous track to reach our destination of Huka Falls. Conor did a disappearing act for a while but eventually caught up with us. Tom was in front of me and must have taught he was Lance Armstrong. I saw him go around a corner and when I reached the end of the corner, he was on his arse on the ground and his bike beside him. Luckily he wasn’t hurt so I burst out laughing and so did Mike but Mike took a little fall of his own so now it was Tom’s turn to laugh (honestly it was like Babys day out for me, loosing Conor and the two boys falling!). We met a man from Limerick along the way called Christy who was nearly out pacing us with his walk!!! Finally we hit Haku Falls. Here the full flow of the Waikato River, funnels into a narrow chasm before plunging over a ten-metre (only 3 more metres than the one me and tom rafted or rather flipped over on!!!) shelf into a seething maelstrom of eddies and whirl pools, the sheer power of some four hundred tonnes of water per second make it a far more awesome sight than the short drop would suggest. The footbridge was a great viewpoint and you could honestly look into it all day and just admire it!! Lots of tourists were around aswell. The journey back was tough on the old legs but we eventually made it back to the hostel in one piece! We were too lazy to get any costumes for Halloween so we just dressed as ourselves, scary enough to some of the locals I’d say! We decided to dine in a fancy Italian restaurant as me and Mike were gagging for some Steak. The Steak was pricey and small (no Uruguay Steak might I add AGAIN) but the hot brandy Tom and I had washed it down beautifully. Back in the hostel, we had a few Halloween drinks (Zombie Brain’s!) and the barman made a mess of his order of 26 Jagger bombs but he was under pressure from a roudy bus full of backpackers dressed up like all sorts. Mike and Tom won a game of doubles against two challengers in the hostel (it went down to the black). Mulligan’s was the pub we ventured into to see all the Halloween festivities and even the guards were in there!!! The map of Ireland was hung on one of the walls and to our amazement it even had Kiloughter on the map…Spooky or what!!!

Trick or Treat,

Gary