Skydives and Pub Crawls

As we were en-route to Taupo our Kiwi Experience driver handed around our optional activities choices for the next two days. The main one was a Skydive. The sky was blue and cloudless, apparently perfect weather for throwing yourself out of a plane, so we thought it's now or never, and signed ourselves up!

We had a quick stop on the way to Taupo to see one of New Zealand's fastest flowing waterfalls and within a couple of hours we were being suited and harnessed up ready for our drop from 12,000ft. We piled into a small, pink aeroplane where we were each attached to our skydive instructors. We were given very few instructions; basically, keep your legs back and your head up!

The climb to 12,000ft took about 20 minutes and the view was amazing (although as nerves start to take hold you don't appreciate the scenery as much!). We were above Lake Taupo, one of New Zealand's largest lakes. It's big enough to fit the whole of Singapore in, and still have room to sail around the edge - which is weird, considering the population of Singapore is bigger than the population of New Zealand!

The freefall lasted about 45 seconds, and was a really weird, but awesome sensation. Once the chute is pulled, the sound of wind roaring passed your ears suddenly stops and there's an unexpected silence as you calmly glide back to earth. This part lasts about 3 minutes, and you can relax and take in the amazing scenery.

Following that adrenaline fuelled afternoon a trip to the nearest bar was in order! After a few drinks and a big game of innuendo bingo we were physically and mentally drained and headed to bed.

The next day we experienced Lake Taupo up close instead of from thousands of feet above by going for a scenic walk around it. That night we had a mass congregation of Kiwi Experience travellers in our dorm room for pre-going out drinking games, and then went on to the club next door. 

The next morning we headed of for New Zealand's capital city, Wellington. On the way there we stopped for a walk around the bottom of Mount Ngauruhoe (aka Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings). Nothing like a nice mountainous trek to cure our hangovers.

That night we met up with the other Kiwi Exers again for another night out, bar crawling our way through the streets of Wellington. We saw a live band, argued with some locals about whether or not we were dressed like "hipsters" and got caught in the pouring down rain. A good night all in all!

The next day we all went to Wellington Museum, which was really cool. Nothing like a nice educational afternoon to cure our hangovers. After that we all pooled our funds and made the biggest fish finger feast you've ever seen. There were more fish fingers on our plates than there are sheep in New Zealand.

We were somehow convinced to go out again that night. We started off with pre-drinks in our dorm again, but this time we were ambushed by "housekeeping" who threatened to throw us out for drinking in the dorm rooms. It was apparently a strict "dry hostel". 

Having being rumbled we put away our drink, barricaded the door, and got out our drink.

We arrived back at the hostel the following morning at 3am where Daniel, our unofficial Kiwi photographer, cooked us all pancakes. We headed to bed with full stomachs for a meager 3 or 4 hours before getting back up to catch our ferry to the south island. Nothing like a nice 3 hour boat ride to cure our hangovers.