Huka falls and Dam (12th Feb)

So I’m making my way around NZ by car which is really great and very easy, if only to store loads of stuff in, but it also means that I’m not walking as much as I would without the car, obviously! So this morning finding myself in Taupo I had plans to go walking, lots.

Taupo is apparently also the skydiving capital of the world. So tomorrows my birthday and it’s a tossup between whether I do a ‘great’ walk or a skydive to mark the occasion. The great walk is the Tongariro Alpine crossing which is 19km traversing active volcanic craters to steaming vents to beautiful lakes, sounds good to me. The thing is the weather hasn’t been looking too great and the pass for the walk was cancelled today and isn’t looking too promising for tomorrow either. To help me decide I headed off to Huka falls to do a 14km round trip to Aratiatia Rapids as a warm up! At Aratiatia Rapids 4 times a day they open the sluice gates and up to 90,000 litres of water per second fill the narrow gorge, this is all in the process of harnessing hydroelectric power. It took an hour and a half to get there and to be honest I actually thought the rush of water was going to be a lot faster than it was, I guess though, although it was a lot if water it was also heading into a very deep area and it also had a lot of space to fill. It was still very impressive though and nice to get out walking.

Huka falls

Aratiatia dam and rapids

So the final decision has been to skydive on my birthday,

which sounds great, until one of the staff at the hostel told me that today no planes flew due to bad weather but to pop and see him in the morning so he can find out for me!

So at this stage I'm not booked to walk the Tongariro crossing and I'm not booked for a skydive either, it could be a very quiet birthday!!