I've skydived over it now to dive under it ...

Lake Taupo, a wonderful place that seems to bring out the maniac, ahem, I mean the adventurer in me :o) Mother, it would be better if you went and made a nice cup of tea at this stage and maybe didn't read this particular installment.



Some 6 years (yes Mazzie, it has been that long), Marion, Sarah and meself were flung from some 12,000 ft with nothing more than a parachute instructor, a lifejacket and a hangover to help us get to the ground - one day I hope to get that video onto youtube!!

A faff of divers

Last weekend, we headed up to Lake Taupo to attack it from a different angle - the underbelly. It didn't disappoint either, giving us a combination of altitude diving - the lake is at 365 metres, good visibility - hey, 15 metres is good when you dive in Wellington and some interesting creatures.

Herself about to get into the lake

The dive site was a near a campsite in Motutere, where I once had a surreal early morning conversation about Strandhill but that's another story. The site is a nice 6 metres and then starts dropping off in steps of 10M. We had some new instructors on the weekend - congrats to Stephen and Nigel - so we gotto be DMs for a day.

On entering the water I was immediately reminded of Wraysbury, the old diving haunt in London, however on putting my face in the water this was soon fixed - I could actually see things! First dive was to 27M for the advanced students, I took a look at 32M to see what was there and would have loved to drop down a bit further but there'll be a next time. Lots of freshwater crayfish, called Koura, but we're not allowed take them on scuba so they were safe from Lisa.

Himself underwater

Had two more dives in the lake in the afternoon, to complete the altitude specialities, and then it was back to the bach for some welled earn grub, a few shandies and a game of poker - what more could a weekend ask for?

What makes a weekend's diving

Karl - the fantastic organiser of the weekend's activities

Anyone seen him looking like this before? Amazingly enough, there was enough steam in him to last another 2 hours of cards!

Sunday morning broke and it was down to the Waikato river which flows from Lake Taupo towards the Huka Falls. This can make for a great drift dive but is very dependent on the flow of the river which is controlled by gates up river. We were lucky, they flow was pretty good and we got to cover the entire drift in about an hour - a distance of about 3Kms. Three highlights spring to mind:

• Going through the really fast section(about 8 knots at a guess) and watching the rainbow trout swimming like buggers just to hold their position in the flow
• Surfacing half way through and watching someone bungee above the river
  
• The hot pools at the end of the dive, man, 30C water in the suit after a long dive is bliss

Getting ready for the Waikato dive

As we were diving at altitude and had to head back to Wellington over the Desert Road, which climbs to over 1100 metres, there was no more diving that day, but what a way to finish the weekend.

Anyway, that was the weekend that was. This weekend I will mostly be spending under the floors measuring joists to fit insulation - but you can expect a full riproaring detailed reportage all the same.

Happy Birthdays to: Janine, Kevin and Nigel

I'm off to finish my yummie bottle of pinot and to terrorise the dog. Hope everyone's in good form and getting ready to enjoy their respective Summers and Winters.

D & L

BTW: A new addition to the blog - just to keep the circulation figures up (or maybe down, I dunno), I'll be publishing a little known joke from my birthday present - "Man Walks Into A Bar"

Defintions:

Lobster: A Tennis Champion
Divorce: Future tense of marriage
Torch: A case fo holding dead batteries

Is mise le meas

The Easter Bunny - Kiwi Stylie

I had to post this as I think it sums up the Kiwi attitude to things, have a read of this - those South Islanders are beginning to scare me (Note the title for the page as well!)

The Flemings have been and gone - no photos as yet but hope to have some as soon as Lisa is back from Sydney.

Spent a few days with the visitors in and around Blenheim and had a beautiful days walking in the Abel Tasman National Park. Be Warned: If Kevin offers to show his photos from NZ, bring a very comfortable chair. He was on shot 750 when I left and they hadn't reached Christchurch by then.

In what would appear to be a related story, every cellar door that we visited appeared to have "just" run out of their reserve Pinot Noirs! I'm not pointing any fingers but I think Lisa has a GPS tracker on my credit card.

Anyway, I'm off to pick herself up from the airport, so hope everyone had a fun Easter and I know I can expect my eggs in the post any day soon.

PS: Lisa has won yet another photography competition (bloody showoff) I had the shot on an earlier blog entry but here it is again - a nudibranch from the Poor Knights (I think OceanBlue should get royalties on this shot)