Taupo and its Lake

They say that it was the world's largest volcanic eruption that left the North Island with Lake Taupo; apparently "the eruption was so dramatic that records indicate the sun became hazy in China."

The McDonald's has an airplane in which you can enjoy your meal

It was a nice relaxing morning in Taupo, walking around town visiting some shops, and grabbing some food before our cruise.  We spend the afternoon aboard a sailboat enjoying some of Lake Taupo (it's the size of Singapore).  Our main objective was to see the Maori rock carvings at Mine Bay.  Although I originally thought they were ancient I found out from our Captain that they were done quite recently. Five artists, led by traditional marae-taught carver Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell, spent four years, from 1976-1980, carving the tattooed face into the alcove.  It is now one of the largest attractions at Lake Taupo.

At some point later in the afternoon I realized that I had made a rather large error, well, errors, in regards to the end of the tour.  For some reason I had it in my head that it was a 10 day tour, so the extra night's accommodation that I had booked for the night the tour ends was not on the correct date.  Thankful for free wifi and time to correct the mistake I hastily attempted to correct my errors.  The YHA was now sold out for the nights I wanted, but I was able to book another hostel down the street for the three nights before my night at the YHA on the 25th.  In correcting the accommodation error I realized I had made another, larger error.  I will be house sitting in Christchurch after the tour ends in Wellington, but it would seem that when I bought my airline ticket (in December) to Christchurch I had no idea where the tour was ending.  Either that or I thought it those extra days took me back to Auckland?  My plane ticket was from Auckland to Christchurch, but the tour ends in Wellington.  After calling Jetstar they told me it was going to be cheapest to just buy a new plane ticket.  If I had more time I would have done some checking to see if it would have been cheaper to just buy a ticket from Wellington to Auckland so I could still utilize my first ticket, but since I'd already booked extra accommodation in Wellington I figured I should just buy a new ticket and move on with life.  One of the downsides to all the re-bookings I was making was that I was missing out on the group BBQ preparations!  On the plus side, I managed to get everything done before dinner so that I didn't have to miss the party.  The food was delicious, but several of us are doing the Tongariro Crossing tomorrow, which means we have to be up at 4am - so we weren't able to sit around too long chatting afterwards.