We got picked up for sledging and white water rafting this morning. I've decided to go sledging because I've seen them do it on The Amazing Race (my motivation for quite a lot on this trip). Pretty much you get a wetsuit, a lifejacket, and a helmet, plus a big plastic kickboard. The sledges are really heavy, and we had to hike about ten minutes down a trail with them. Once at the river we had to jump in with the sledges, and I flipped over immediately. I did get pretty good at turning myself over again, since I kept flipping upside down :) It was really hard as we had to fit our arms in the sledge and the arm rests were too long for me so I didn't reach the end where I could rest my elbows. I pretty much had to keep myself hitched up to the top of the sledge with upper body strength alone. Ha! Plus, I had to keep kicking with my toes pointed in my flippers to move and centre myself, which was really hard on my legs. The worst part was that I bashed my knee on a rock going over a rapid, and it really hurt, plus all the kicking gave me a cramp in my leg. While some of the group was doing river surfing, I hung back because I honestly didn't think I had enough energy or strength to not get swept down the river and over a 6 meter waterfall. I was very happy when it was over. It was kind of fun, but the only activity I would not repeat.
After the water sports, we headed back to where the Zorb was to watch Joe bungy jump. It took forever for them to take him up on the crane, so I hung out with some sheep and ostrich. The farm show demonstration sheep are let loose between shows, so they have free reign of the carpark.
Back to Rotorua for lunch at the Fat Dog. They have really cool custom plates made for the restaurant and very good food.
Since I finished lunch early I had a wander around the downtown and finally found some earplugs - definitely a necessity in a 6-bunk hostel room.
Onto the bus again for a road trip to Wai-O-Tapu, a geothermal area with craters and boiling mud and sulfur pools and such. It has a geyser also, but we missed the 10:15 AM eruption. Susan and I motored through the stinky park trails and were back out by 5. She says it's just like Yellowstone, so now I don't have to go there :)
On the way out of Wai-O-Tapu we went to a hot river. It looks just like a regular river, with vegetation and everything, but it is hot like a hot tub. We lolled about a bit in the river (and saw a couple with the most amazing dreads - the guy's were down to his knees!).
We then headed out to Taupo, on the shore of Lake Taupo - New Zealand's largest lake. We stopped at Woolworth's (a grocery store) to let the people doing the Tongariro Crossing the next day load up on snacks and such. I found Tim Tams, which is a rectangualr chocolate sandwich cookie coated in chocolate. Evidently what one does is bite off each end and then suck up hot chocolate through the resultant chocolate straw. Must try that soon. Susan and Andrea and I ended up at an Indian Restaurant called "Mr. India", had a delicious Indian dinner, and then headed off to bed. We are staying at the Taupo Urban Retrat, which is completely opposite to how it is named. It's got a really loud bar and really small cramped rooms with walls like tissue paper - you can hear everything though them.
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