Skydiving? Tongariro?

This week is "Mid-Semester Break" and most of our friends are using the time to travel around the South Island. I'm going to be going to the South Island in two weeks, but I still wanted to do something over break. So 5 of us (Kim, Kelly, Cate, Lynn, and I) planned a trip to go to Taupo and to Tongariro. Taupo is the skydiving capital of the world and though I was not planning on participating, some of the other girls did want to go skydiving. Tongariro is a national park containing some impressive mountains, including the mountain that was used to film Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. There is a hike, "Tongariro Crossing," which is supposedly the best dayhike in all of New Zealand, so we wanted to do that as well.

We picked up the rental car early on Saturday morning and drove the three and a half hours to the hostel in Taupo. It was a nice drive, but when we got to the hostel, everyone was pretty tired. This hostel was very nice, and we had a room with just the 5 of us and an ensuite bathroom! The girls who were going skydiving were going to be picked up at the hostel at 3:00, and we had some time, so we decided to lay down for naps. We were all woken up at 2 by a knock on our door, being told that the car was here to pick us up! So everyone groggily, but quickly, got ready to go. It was a limo that came to pick us up, and we all got to go to the airport, even if we weren't actually going skydiving. I was glad because I wanted to come along to see and for moral support!

Kelly, Cate and Lynn were the ones who were going skydiving, and so obviously had a bit of paperwork to do. This is one place where New Zealand is completely different from the United States. At home, there are all sorts of safety precautions and everything. Here, they pretty much just make you sign a form saying that you can't sue them if anything happens to you. So as we watch the girls sign the form, the tension started to build! I think reality was beginning to set in that they were about to jump out of an airplane at 15,000 feet! When we arrived at the place, we all got to watch the DVD of a girl who had just gone. I have to say that as I watched the video, I only became more certain that I had made the right decision in choosing NOT to skydive. The view was beautiful, but I think I would have been scared out of my mind. The only reason I would really have wanted to go would have been so that I could say "I went skydiving!" and for me, since it wasn't something that I personally wanted to do, it wasn't worth the money or the risk. BUT, that's just me! While watching the DVD made me scared, the girls who were actually going got excited - so that's a good thing!

They got all geared up and then flew off in a bright pink plane! Kim and I watched from the ground and we actually SAW each of them as little dots appear one by one. Then, once the parachutes opened, we could see them even better. They were in complete free fall for a little over a minute! Once all three of them were safely back on the ground, we got to hear all about it. They all agreed that it was the coolest thing they had ever done in their lives - so I'm happy that they enjoyed it AND survived!

We decided to go out for a celebratory dinner afterwards, and walked in to town to find a place. Everything was pretty expensive and the town seemed kind of dead. We wound up at a little Japanese place where we got chicken terriyaki. After dinner, we went to the supermarket to get some basic supplies before heading back to the hostel. When Kelly and I were putting our groceries in the fridge, we made an amazing discovery: there were some games in the common room, and better yet, they had "Cranium." (For anyone not familiar, this is a boardgame which I love, that is kind of like a Charades, Pictionary, Name that Tune, trivia questions, Wheel of Fortune, and more all rolled into one wonderful game!) So we brought that back to our room and played two rounds of it before heading to sleep.

The next morning, we tried to decide what to do before driving to Tongariro. Our next hostel was only about an hour and a half away, so we wanted to do something in the morning before heading out. We decided to drive along the river, where we could get a nice view of Huka Falls:

Then, we headed along to visit the "Craters of the Moon," an interesting natural site. Because of the thermal activity below New Zealand, these interesting craterlike holes formed. There is steam coming out from the ground and bubbling mud pools. There is a track that winds along and takes about an hour, so we decided to go for the walk. I'm really glad we did, because it turned out to be a rather unique experience.

Our next random stop was a visit to "Huka Prawn Park," a prawn farm with some interesting activities. There was a restaurant there, which we did not actually eat at. We went up to look at the menu, and the hostess started to seat us. We told her that we were just looking at the menu for now, and she said rather rudely, "Well then could you stand back there so you are not in the way of other customers." So we just used the bathrooms and decided NOT to eat there! (To be honest, we wouldn't have eaten there anyway - our budgets couldn't quite afford the prawn dishes - but it felt better to pretend that we were leaving because of her rudeness rather than our lack of funds!)

We DID however, give Huka Prawn Park some business by participating in the exciting activity of "Killer Prawn Golf." Basically, we purchased a bucket of golf balls like you would at a driving range, and hit them into the prawn pools! It really looked like a driving range too! There were prizes for getting a ball into a certain ring (but, no surprise, none of us won). We were not really expert golfers by any means - we got all excited when one of us actually hit the ball - but we had fun trying anyway.

After the golf, we went to the Honey Hive, where we sampled different types of honey products, none of which I really liked! But we did try some wine made from Kiwifruit. (Yes, you must be very specific here in New Zealand when talking about Kiwis. The word "kiwi" by itself refers to the people, "kiwifruit" is the fruit, and "kiwi bird" is the national bird). So, just for clarification, the wine we got was made from a fruit, not a New Zealander or a bird!

We drove towards our hostel in Tongariro, seeing some very nice scenery along the way.
When we went to check in, we were told that we might want to reconsider our plans, since we wouldn't be able to do the hike the next day. The weather was supposed to be rainy, but worse than that, they were expecting 75 km/hr winds. Since part of the hike involves climbing down the edge of a crater, you are very exposed to the wind and the woman told us it would just be too dangerous. We were all really disappointed and kind of thrown off of our plans. We sat around for a bit, trying to figure out what we could do instead. We decided we would stay the night, and then figure out what to do for the morning. But once we got into the room (which was pretty nice, by the way!) and actually starting discussing our options, we decided that it would probably make more sense just to drive back to Auckland that night. There wasn’t anything in particular that we really wanted to do (there’s not much to do around Tongariro OTHER than hike), so we would be just waking up and driving back. So we decided to save the money on a night of accommodation. Here's what we WOULD have been climbing:
The drive back took about 5 hours. We stopped for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Hamilton. The place was pretty full, and almost everyone eating there was Asian, so we figured that was a good sign. It turned out to be mediocre at best though. We were all pretty hungry though, so it didn’t matter much! When we arrived back in Auckland, we now had to figure out where to park the rental car, which was quite an ordeal since it was POURING rain at this point. We could park it overnight on the street, but we would either have to move it or put money in the meter starting at 8 AM. So we decided to try the parking lot nearby, but the machines weren’t working and we wound up going back to our spot on the street! When we got back into Empire, wet and tired, we were all glad to get a good night’s sleep.

We got up the next morning and decided that we would take advantage of having the rental car. So we drove to the aquarium, which was a nice indoor activity (since the weather was still gross). It was a cool aquarium, but the highlight was the Antarctica exhibit. They had a whole bunch of penguins in a simulated environment with water and snow. Plus, they have a little vehicle which they call a “Snowcat,” where you can ride through the exhibit, right up next to the penguins! They were so cute! That night, we had a nice dinner and movie night. We made tricolor pasta and had our Kiwifruit wine. It was a wonderful cozy night and a great end to our trip!