Weekend Trip to Lake Taupo

This weekend a group planned a last minute trip to Lake Taupo. It is about 4 hours south of Auckland. We chose Taupo with the intention of Skydiving. It is supposed to be the cheapest with one of the best views so we booked our jump time and rented a car. It was so nice to get away from the city for a little bit. The drive down was nice. Everyone was so excited for skydiving that the time flew. We checked into our hostel, which was surprisingly nice and grabbed dinner in town. Then the five of us headed to the bar downstairs. Go figure, we were the only people in there. So we played pool for a bit and went back to try and sleep. But our room faced the club next door which played music until 3:30 so we really didn't sleep very much.

We got up early and visited the Aratiatia Rapids which were about 10km away. We got there just as they released the flood gates so the water was rushing through. It was crystal clear and a really pretty color blue. There was a trail that we followed to the top. It led us to a scenic overview which was breathtaking.



Next we visited Huka Falls. I was expected this amazing waterfall but quickly realized it was not at all what I thought. Instead it was rather small but really intense. The water rushes through at 30,000 gallons a second.



We headed back to the hostel since we were scheduled to be picked up at 2pm to skydive! But when we called they asked us to call back in a half hour since they were not jumping due to the weather. This went on for about 2 and a half hours before we were picked up in a long white limo! We signed our lives away and watched all the safety videos. We were all set to jump before they called us off again due to the weather. It was a complete disappointment. So we rescheduled for the next morning but the same thing happened. That night the weather was still miserable so we decided to go see Inception. It was such a great movie, go see it if you haven't yet.



Needless to say, we still have our vouchers so we will be heading back to Taupo soon.... hopefully with better weather next time.