Two ice cream day.....ooops

Wake up, where are we again, oh yes, not in mountain hut with days walking ahead of us, instead in Taupo. What are we doing here? Not sure really but it was preferable to 90km/hr winds in Tongariro. We’ll try the crossing again later but in the mean time what shall we do?

 

In the end opt for getting up. This was a good start.

 

Found some information on Huka Falls and a walkway there from campsite (ish) also can extend walk up to a dam which opens to let water through at certain times. Pretty sure we can make it for one of those times and it sounds cool. Also see Kayaking advert and a bungee swing. Martyn vetoes the bungee swing but is happy to go for the rest of it! (Not sure I could do a bungee swing either much as though there is a part of me that quite likes the idea!)

 

Anyway, set off for walk to falls / dam. As usual get lost. After one hour we should have been at the waterfall. It took us two hours. In the end we worked out we had managed to pick up the mountain biking trail which went up and down a lot more than the nice flat river walk Martyn had been expecting. Ooops. Never mind. It was a lovely walk. As a consequence of getting lost we realized we would not make it to the dam in time for opening so head off to see what we can see in terms of Kayaking.

 

Bargain, its 12.15 and there is a Kayaking trip at 13.30 going to these Maori sculptures that Martyn quite wanted to see. After a quick trip to Honey Hive for a honey ice cream and a banana and honey smoothie (which Martyn informs me is a drink and so does not count on the ice cream front despite having a considerable amount of ice cream in it) its off Kayaking.

 

After an hours Kayaking we get there. Martyn very upset to learn that the sculptures are only 30 years old and had been done by 2 blokes on scaffolding as the water beneath them is only 3m deep. They do look very cool though and it was a lovely Kayak to get to them. It was much better once I got used to the huge 25cm swell there was at one point! I was much better in the white water with my inner tube…..

 

Stop for a break, drink and some yummy brownie and fruit cake and then back to Taupo to walk up to campsite. It was quite humid and we completely forgot about our previous ice cream so unfortunately/fortunately depending on how you look at it,  today was a completely accidental two ice cream day. We will have to have none tomorrow to balance out. We’ll have to be good and eat those apples we bought……am seriously considering what the consequences of moving to a totally ice cream diet would be. Nutritionally speaking as long as you included the odd fruit flavoured scoop it can’t be that bad right?????