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April 4, 2002. Today we leave Lake Taupo and fly to the South Island. Our first stop is Christchurch. We learned that Lake Taupo was formed many years ago by one of the fiercest volcanic eruptions in history. The lake is still an active volcano, although it has not erupted in 300 years. It is 600 feet at its deepest, and larger than the island of Singapore. The entire region is surrounded by volcanoes, and marks the beginning of a string of volcanoes running 1000 miles all the way to the island of Tonga. The lake is beautiful and there are an endless variety of activities in the area. A couple of days ago, we visited the Orakei Korako thermal valley, which was full of geysers, thermal pools and a giant cave. We also visited a prawn farm and fed Malaysian river prawns by hand. Then we ate them. Believe it or not, we went trout fishing on the lake yesterday. Lane caught a seven pound rainbow trout, which was dinner last night. The country is very respectful of the environment, and there are restrictions on the way you are permitted to fish, designed to make it harder to catch anything. It is also illegal to buy or sell trout, so you can only eat what you catch yourself. In fact, since no restaurant can serve trout, they are all happy to cook the trout that you catch and serve it to you. There are also parks and parts of the country that only the native Maori are allowed to enter. Maori are the only people allowed to catch or eat certain wildlife, too, such as crayfish. We'll be in touch again soon, stay well!

The thermal pool in the house was amazing. And spooky. It fills in 20 minutes with steaming hot mineral water that just relaxes you to a hypnotic state -- if you can get over the fact that it is straight out of a horror film. If you're not into thermal baths, the room is also a great place to dismember your enemies.