Monday 4 October 2010

Arrived in Taupo

4th October 2010

Weather: Sunny and quite warm

MP3 track of the day: Chinese - Lilly Allen
















Waking up early, again, I got ready (in the pitch black as everyone else was still asleep in my dorm) and went up to reception to hand back my 2nd room key. I got my $20 deposit back ... minted.




Not wanting to wait around to see if they realise that they have made a mistake, I left my hostel and headed for my bus stop. My stop was located at the Sky Tower terminal, about a fifteen minute walk away from my hostel. However these fifteen minutes were up hill and I was quite out of breath by the time I arrived at the bus station (need to get fit, too much time laying on a beach in Fiji).




I boarded the coach and, to my surprise, the coach was really nice, clean and very comfortable. The greyhound buses in Canada were okay, but no way near the level of cleanliness that I found here (and no surprise but this coach was a lot more modern than the ones I took in Fiji).




I had planned to stare out of the window all the way to Taupo, however I was so tired from my first two days here (that South American party didn't help) that I kept nodding off. I forced myself to stay awake by eating quite a bit of chocolate (its a hard life) to keep my mind off sleep. Looking outside the window, the terrain was very English; rolling fields full of livestock (which I must say, seemed to have more cows than sheep) all partitioned off with wooden fences ... I could have been in the Derbyshire Peak District.




We had passed our first break stop and stupidly I didn't get off the coach to use the bathroom. One hour and thirty minutes after the stop I needed the bathroom and so I had to use the toilet provided, on the coach, as there was no other breaks according to my timetable. Just like the rest of the bus the toilet was super clean, but it was so tiny ... so much so that I could not turn around on the spot without hitting my head on something, my knees hit the door when I sat down and all-in-all, other passengers must have been wondering what on earth was going on. After what seemed an age I returned to my seat ready for the last two hours of my trip to Taupo.




After about 20 minutes the driver came over the radio to say that we were now stopping for lunch ... what! My timetable said that the lunch stop would be at Taupo, that's why I used the toilet on board ... damn!




So we pulled into this very nice diner where I had a chicken sandwich, (which was a chicken sandwich, no sauce, nothing, just bread and chicken ... these Kiwi's do mean what they say when they label products) a piece of 'okay' cake, a packet of crisps and a hot chocolate. Just like the breaks on the Greyhound in Canada we didn't have that long so I had to throw my meal down me to stand any chance of making it back to the coach on time.




We soon arrived in Taupo which seemed lovely. Taupo was a lot bigger than I imagined but that just made it better; there seemed to be loads of places to eat and all the basics I required were here.




After getting a little lost I made it to my hostel after about 20 minutes of walking around. By this stage it was 3pm and I was really tired; however I didn't want to go to sleep to early and so I headed into town to post my Fijian souvenirs home...




$55.00 it cost me to post the lot home, which I actually didn't think was too bad as it was two packages (plus all the packaging) traveling half way around the world ... I just hope my cannibal fork makes it home in one piece.




After this I chilled around town before heading to the super market at around 6:50pm; on my way I past a fish and chip takeaway which, I thought would go down nicely tonight. Once in the supermarket I bought breakfast (some cereal bars) for the next three days and a drink to go with tonight's fish and chips. I left the supermarket at 7pm to find the takeaway had just closed ... what! I know Sarah told me that places close earlier here than in the UK but 7pm for a fish and chip takeaway ... that's worse than the Georges at Park Farm, Derby!




So no fish and chips for me then ... never mind I found a pizza place and purchased a pizza for the reasonable cost of $9.00 (four pounds and fifty pence). I took this back to my hostel and ate it; it was now 8pm and I was really tired. I decided to have a nice, long, hot shower before going to bed around 9pm ... my plan was to get up around 8/9am the following day and have a look around Taupo before heading to the 'craters of the moon' ... a geothermal area just north of the city.




Looking in my wallet the $200 (100 pounds) I had taken out two days ago had all gone; even though I was below my daily budget, I had just had two days with Alex and Sarah (they were very hospitable and they practically fed me for two days) therefore I wondered how I had spent so much so quickly, I needed to watch how much I spend a lot more closely from now on. Still none of this mattered at this point in time, all I wanted was sleep.





Toodle Pip!

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