Taupo....again!

After stopping briefly in Auckland we headed back to Taupo. A Canadian couple we met on our 2nd visit to Auckland (Mark and Krista) were in Taupo for a few weeks staying in their friends aunties cottage and invited us to join them, so we did as we also wanted to do the Tongariro crossing which was nearby. We spent a couple of nights at the cottage catching up with Mark and Krista, on one of the evenings we took a short drive to a place where a natural hot stream runs into a river, and we all sat in that for an hour or so. That was so nice, but a bit bizarre cos the stream was really hot and the river really cold and whilst sat in a hot bit there'd be a bubble of really cold water from the river....oddness, but very nice :-)

We left Mark and Krista to stay at a campsite closer to the Tongariro crossing as it was a very early start. When we arrived the weather was pretty shite, but we stayed the night with the intention of doing the walk the next day. Next day came and the weather was even worse, raining like hell and gale force winds on the mountains. So we sat round all day playing cards and stuff with the hope that the weather will clear the following day, but it didn't!! We couldn't hang around for days waiting for a clear day, so we gave up on it!!

We headed back to Taupo and had an evening with Mark and Krista drinking wine and playing a card game called 'arsehole', Lesley had taught us this in Fiji but we didn't play it enough to get to grips with it. We have now though, it's a great game, with a great name!