Taupo part 2

The chronicle blabla title is a bit too long so in keeping with my lazy attitude, I'm sticking with the simpler version from now on. We spent 2 nights here at Taupo though originally planned for one, but there was much to see and do here. For starters, Taupo lake is stunningly beautiful. This blue lake was once a huge volcanic crater belonging to a volcano that is thought erupted 25,000 years ago and gave birth to North Island itself. I think, I might be talking crap here (about giving birth part, the rest I'm sure is true) and couldn't be bothered checking my facts about it. Unfortunately I don't have any personal photo of the lake (there's plenty of that on the net) but here are some photo (top 2) I have taken on the Taupo bungy, which is located at the river flowing from the lake:

So, no, I didn't do the bungy. Reason: I already did it 2 years ago on a more spectacular paltform. My take on bungy: do it. If anyone come and live in NZ and never does it, they are missing out. Taupo Bungy is one of the cheapest in NZ but bungy is not that cheap. At Taupo it'll cost you NZD 140 for the first jump. Subsequent jump for that day is NZD 40. The one I did, the Nevis at Queenstown - a mere 143m drop and 8 second freefall, compared to this one, just less than 50m - cost me nzd 200. The night prior to the jump, I thought "wtf was I thinking? If it goes wrong, its suicide." and "200 dollars for an 8 second jump that may kill you, are you serious?". I don't know, or bother to go looking for, about the casualty rate of bungy jumping but it should be pretty low because it remains a commercial activity and so what the heck, I did it but not without fear. I looked back at my jump, which was caught and immortalised on DVD, and the look on my face had fear in every inches of it. I rationalise by thinking how safe it would be, but my, when you fall, the speed of your fall is tremendous as the grounds seemed closer and closer in mere seconds, and you don't feel any pull of the rubber that prevents you from going splat. Lucky I didn't wet my pants - the other thing I was afraid of but just to get the facts straight, I never ever did in my life -and the jump went well - hey, I'm still here. Before the jump, the operator told us that the rubber was from Malaysia, he even said "this better be good". It was good, as one would say Malaysia Boleh. Anyway, I was there at Taupo Bungy because my traveling companion did the jump. When asked what he felt, his answer was "confused" due to "mismatching between perception of movement and sense of movement". Weird.

Back to the photo, the bottom-left is from The Craters Of The Moon, a thermal park where there is a self-tour walk through a park filled with numerous fumaroles, craters and some mud pools. The bottom-right is from Huka Falls. Thats taken from one of the lookout point there. One can also go on a speedboat ride in which the boat does 360 spins or just go on a slow cruise. I opted the speedboat ride and it was plenty of fun. That was nzd 99. Now I'm off to Asr.