Taupo is an adrenalin junkie's dream, with all kinds of activities. We decided to skip all the Bungy Jumping and Sky Diving for now and make a gentle start with Para-sailing.We were taken out by two very cool guys operating the boat, blaring The White Stripes and Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix from the boat speakers. We went along with a New Zealander mother and daughter, and two sisters from Oxford whose family had moved here two years ago. It was interesting to hear from them about their experiences here.
The New Zealand mother said that certainly there was an element of taking the beauty of their home-country for granted. However, she and her husband had decided “right, let's hire a camper and get away for two weeks” and headed out into the countryside. It seeme
d typical of the Kiwi attitude, they seem very go-ahead people and if there is an opportunity to get to the water, up in the air or falling down from it, they take it.“Friendliness and time for you, nothing is too much bother” was the main thing the Oxford girls said about the New Zealand people. They had been here two years and got a shock on a recent visit home – “people were so rude!” they said. They loved the countryside and the locals, but the biggest things they missed from home were “shops and friends – I miss my friends so much!”.
We've talked about the utopia of living here, because it really is a paradise. But the girls' experience highlights the paradox. One reason this is a fantastic place to live is the remoteness and the small
number of people here. But that remoteness makes it impossible to keep contact with your established life back home. Unless there was ever a strong reason to start again and leave everything behind (which neither of us have now), we can't imagine living here, largely because of the disconnection with family and friends. Nicki can visualise coming back here at a later stage of life to travel for 6 months because she's absolutely captivated by the scenery, the people and the relaxed atmosphere. For me, I find the same – but there is a lack of “edge” to give it contrast and put things into different lights. I think I would get complacent living here and miss the darker side of life.The para-sailing itself was just great.
They attach us side-by-side in harnesses to the parachute at the back of the boat, speed up and gradually feed a line out as you lift into the air. Rising up, suddenly everything is calm and quieter, as the sound of the boat and the waves drifts off below you. The view across the lake was fantastic and we got a great view of the coast where we'd both been running the day before (and seen around 20 black swans.) It was a lovely thing to do together.After coming down, we drove south through the
countryside and passed by the Ruapehu mountain, which we'd seen so clearly from a distance while up in the sky at Taupo. Looking at the snow-capped mountain close up was beautiful.The evening finished with a hostel stay just north of Wellington in a lovely little place that reminded us both of our grandmother's homes. The coastline looked just like Devon and Cornwall in the South West of England - weird to feel so familiar, so far away from home.
