Napier and Taupo

A bit of a later start this morning with us having until 920am till the bus came to get us, Ang took us to the bus stop and we stood waiting for the bus.. and what do you know it went flying past us without a second glance...

we stood around for a bit, wondering if it was going to come back for us but nope...

eventually got through to the magic office, and they relaised that they had forgotten to put us on the list for today hence the reson the bus had flown past...

they got in contact with the driver, who was zooming up te road and well past turning back... but said he'd wait for us at the next stop.

Ang and S were kind enough to drop us off at the Mt Bruce center. I felt so guilty about it, but thank you so much guys! (it's the only problem we had with the company...)
we didn't get to go inside and see the kiwi's which was a little disappointing, but we did manage to catch the bus...

The rest of the day was meant to be spent going from brewery to winery, however no one was all that interested in stopping so we headed straight through to Napier.

now napier was definitely an interesting town, after being pretty much flattened by an earthquake way back in the 1930's much of the town has been rebuilt with an art deco sense of architecture

This guy was outside the Deco centre, and how could i not resist posing with him.... what was even funnier was that after i did it, this group of asians all took pictures of him too, trend setter that i am!

Had an awesome dinner at this steak house just next door to our hostel (it was raining we stopped at the first thing we found!) i'm going to place it as the best fush and chups of the trip!

Up bright and early the next morning with the hope that the bus would remember us this time around, lucky it stopped!


not far to travel today, just and hour and a half to get into Taupo the adventure capital of the north.. the whole way up our driver was trying to sell the idea of sky diving, every 10mins it was like "i can get you a good deal, you should go skydiving" funnily enough no one took him up on the offer...


After booking ourselves on a cruise to head out and see the huge Stone carvings on the lake, i decided to head out to see the Huka Falls...


The guy at reception told me it would take 3hrs return from where we were, problem was i had 2hr 45mins and i had to be down at the harbour to catch the boat... but i set of anyway

B opted to stay and do washing and meet up later at the harbour for the cruise...







it was a gorgeous walk with some fantastic views as i worked my way around the river up and down hills, in and out of rainforrest jungle like sections...





it went on and on... i kept looking at my watch thinking i should turn back now, but yet kept telling myself they'd just be around the corner...





i got there, took some pictures then had to hightail it out of there...





in the end i made it back to the harbour with a good 5 mins to spare... and had time to paddle in the hotpools at the end of the walk too...





Arrived at the harbour to find that our boat was in for repairs and it had torn a sail on the previous trip, and wasn't going to be fixed in time, so we opted to go on the steam boat instead... it was a good idea, as once we got out on the lake the wind really picked up... lots of people on board were looking green around the gills soon into it.



But i have to say when we came around the corner and saw this it was worth it

You cant really see it in the picture but it was the as tall as a two storey house, and all the rocks to the left have animals, and people carved in them as well... very cool