Taupo - River Valley - Wellington

Hey everyone!

We had one more night in Taupo partying...but it was not a big one because we were due to leave the following day to River Valley quite early in the morning.

En route to River Valley, we drove through the Tongariro National Park, which is wrld heritage listed and absolutely beautiful. We did a 2 hour hike which was stunning, and included seeing such sights as Mount Doom (the big volcano where frodo eventually puts the ring into at the end of Lord of the Rings) and some lovely waterfalls (where the boys had great fun jumping off cliffs into!) I felt sorry for my friend Claire who tripped over her ankle about 10 mins into the walk and sprained it...but not too bad - our bus driver Dave carried her for the entire hike!

Back on the bus, we continued to River Valley. This is a lodge in the middle of nowhere where you can go white water rafting. However, there has not been much rain here for a few weeks, so the river was too low to go rafting - so annoying!!

The accomodation was very different, shall we say! We were put in 20 bed dorms, which basically translates into very little sleep. After a great roast cooked by the lodge and plenty of beer, we all crashed in the dorm. It was an extremely funny night - but one of those you had to be there' situations.

We left river valley around 12pm the following day and spent the entire day on the bus to Wellington. Arriving around 6pm, me Claire, Nick, Jonno, Chris and Tim all made a huge Spag Bol for dinner before joingin the rest of the bus for drinks and dancing in downtown Wellington.

Today, me and Claire headed off to the Vietnam Embassy so i could get my visa, and then did a wee bit of shopping. We have some time here before we move to South Island so just planning on chilling for a while.

Speak soon

xxx