It looked like a harmless ledge covered in leaves.
It had been a wet day, and Di Drayton went to stand on a leafy part of the track before leaping over a wet rock. But there was nothing under the leaves except for a 15m drop into Lake Taupo.
She plunged through the leaves, but seemed to slow momentarily on the steep bank. She remembers grabbing frantically at something, anything.
“I just grabbed and looked at my hand, and it was just dirt,” she recalls. “Then I was in the lake.”
It’s been more than 16 years since that fateful day, which may have had a more deadly outcome were it not for the swift action of her friend and the heavy pack she was wearing; the pack shouldered some of the impact and kept
