ï»¿{"id":26,"date":"2005-10-06T18:05:34","date_gmt":"2005-10-06T16:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/?p=26"},"modified":"2009-07-16T08:39:05","modified_gmt":"2009-07-16T06:39:05","slug":"rotorua-to-taupo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/2005\/10\/06\/rotorua-to-taupo\/","title":{"rendered":"Rotorua to Taupo and Whakapapa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>6th of October, Rotorua<br \/>\nRotorua, or \u201cRotten Egg city\u201d is famous for  Whakarewarewa , a little village build right in the middle of erupting geysers,  hot thermal springs and bubbling mud pools. It\u2019s a place where Maoris lived for  many years and now offer an insight on their culture and lifestyle. Very  convenient to have a pool of hot boiling water right in front of your house  where you can cook your meals and wash your cloths.<\/p>\n<p>After we left Whakarewarewa we headed south via some more amazing mud pools  and the Huka Falls towards Taupo and it&#8217;s great lake (the world&#8217;s largest crater  lake). Kerry, out beloved bus driver was a real story teller and every morning  he would play the song \u201cMe and my monkey\u201d by Robbie Williams.<\/p>\n<p>The reason he did so was to \u201chonor\u201d group he traveled with before us. The  group consisted of about a dozen girls and one guy. The hostel in Taupo offers a  room for 14 people so that entire stray group including the guy spent the night  in one room. After a pub crawl and of course way to much alcohol the guy must  have forgotten that he was in a room full of girls and in the morning started to  \u201cplease\u201d himself, which is also know as \u201cspanking the monkey\u201d Unfortunately the  girls took notice of that and told Kerry about the incident it in the morning  when they got back on the bus\u2026 After we where told the story, the hold bus  started to crack up and we demanded the song every morning, and if someone  joined the group forced Kerry to retell it, adding bits and pieced every now and  then to the already raunchy story.<\/p>\n<p>    <div class=\"ngg-gallery-singlepic-image ngg-left\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\n\t\t        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/newzealand\/new_zealand_-32.jpg\"\n           title=\"\"\n           data-src=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/newzealand\/new_zealand_-32.jpg\"\n           data-thumbnail=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/newzealand\/thumbs\/thumbs_new_zealand_-32.jpg\"\n           data-image-id=\"1734\"\n           data-title=\"new_zealand_-32\"\n           data-description=\"\"\n           target='_self'\n\t\t\tclass=\"shutterset_6157fc93af4d3ac6164e4833bbef8ec1\">\n            <img class=\"ngg-singlepic\"\n                 src=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-content\/gallery\/newzealand\/cache\/new_zealand_-32.jpg-nggid041734-ngg0dyn-320x240x100-00f0w010c010r110f110r010t010.jpg\"\n                 alt=\"new_zealand_-32\"\n                 title=\"new_zealand_-32\"\n\t\t\t\t                    width=\"320\" \t\t\t\t            \/>\n        <\/a>\n\t\t    <\/div>\n\t\t7th of Ocotber, Taupo to Whakapapa<br \/>\nTaupo is the capital of skydiving in New Zealand, unfortunately not on the 7th of October, as snow and strong winds kept planes grounded. At least for us, some early birds eventually got to jump out of the plane in the very morning while the rest of the group was still sleeping.<\/p>\n<p>The plan was to do the Tongorrio Crossing on that day too, but as snow already canceled my plans to jump out of a plane, it also prevented me from doing one of the most amazing walks on this planet. What a shame!<\/p>\n<p>While snow could keep me from climbing \u201cMount Doom\u201d, it did not prevent crazy AJ and some other backpackers from doing a little walk around the national park once we arrived at the \u201cScotel\u201d, a skiing resort that also offers accommodation for backpackers during the low season. Despite strong winds and sleet \u00a0we did a 2,5 hour walk. Unfortunately my jeans where frozen after that walk and my legs went numb. But its amazing what a whirlpool with six female travelers in it can do to your blood temperature in a very short time! At night two wonderful ladies prepared Chili con Carne for the entire group and we had a fun evening at the hotel bar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>6th of October, Rotorua Rotorua, or \u201cRotten Egg city\u201d is famous for Whakarewarewa , a little village build right in the middle of erupting geysers, hot thermal springs and bubbling mud pools. It\u2019s a place where Maoris lived for many years and now offer an insight on their culture and lifestyle. Very convenient to have &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/2005\/10\/06\/rotorua-to-taupo\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Rotorua to Taupo and Whakapapa&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-backpacking","category-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebeach.info\/backpacking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}