TAUPO

Along our way down the North Island we spent two days in Taupo. We had originally planned three however the Tongariro Crossing had been cancelled unfortunately (it was a blessing in disguise because I definitely would have struggled doing an 8 hour trek up a mountain.) We kick started our first day in Taupo with a sky dive! We arrived at Skydive Taupo and had our safety briefings and got into the suits; unfortunately we had to wait a little while for the clouds to clear but when they did it was beautiful! I had spent the majority of the time waiting with the skydive company's pet cat so I was pretty content. About 6 of us were put in the plane; Brad and Taby were in my plane and it was reassuring knowing you are doing it with friends! We had a 15-20 minute flight up to 15,000ft. It was amazing to see the views and in the plane Brad was more scared than me! At 8,000ft up you are given oxygen masks for the rest of the way; which did make me a little nervous but you quickly forget about it. When we got to the right spot the door opened and we were all out in about 20 seconds; it was so fast! It was quite daunting watching people fall out the plane as there was a little suction noise as they fell and they disappeared quite quickly.

When it came to my turn to fall I shut my eyes as this was what put me off my bungee- being able to see how high you are! I expected to feel quite uncomfortable as soon as you fall as I thought there would be some spinning but it felt so smooth and the guy on my back promised he would get me out as soon as possible! The free fall was about a minute long but it literally felt 10 seconds! I chose the package where a photographer jumps and videos you whilst takes pictures so it was fun to have someone else jumping alongside you! It was the most surreal experience and the views are incredible! After a minute of free fall which is literally indescribable it's the best thing I've ever done; you have a 5 minute parachute ride down, although mine ended up being nearer to 10 minutes because the heavier the load the quicker you fall, so I ended up being last to land. I couldn't stop smiling and asking my tandem master what everything was, it's made me love New Zealand even more! I would 100% do it again, however I wouldn't fall from any higher because towards the end of the free fall my ears started to get a little painful because of all the pressure, but it wasn't bad enough to put me off doing it again; I think the adrenaline made it seem a lot less painful! When we landed everyone in the group just couldn't stop smiling! 

We headed back to the hostel after and met back up with everyone else, we all went to a bar quiz in the evening and had some drinks.

The next morning we had a lazy morning and we then went on a sailing boat at 2pm, we all had some drinks and pizza whilst having a sail in Lake Taupo which was really nice! After a few hours we were back on land and decided we didn't want to go back to the hostel so we chilled by the lake until it got dark. This has to be one of my favourite memories from New Zealand because we all had so much fun. There was about 13 of us just chilling, drinking, dancing and listening to music. When the sun went down we went back to the hostel and went into the bar- after the bar man refusing to serve us because we were a bit too happy for his liking we went round a few other bars before heading to the local Irish pub where it was very lively. We all had some more drinks and had a dance and it was a good night!

I think Taupo has to be my favourite place we went to in New Zealand; not necessarily for the town but because of the memories we made. We had so much fun with the best group of people, and we finally got to do a skydive!