"We were going pretty good, we'd had a pretty good summer," says Mark Funnell, owner of Tandem Skydive.
It will be a while yet before skydiving returns to Taupō. The tourist town has taken a large hit from the lockdown and despite the move to alert level 3 next week, many businesses will have to wait their turn.
"There's been nothing to do," Funnell said. "It's looking like that's going to continue for us for quite a while. It will be until we get into level 1 or 2 when we can close in on that personal space, because we can't have two people a metre or two apart, packed into an airplane.
"We'll be quite a while before we get started again."
Funnell is one of the lucky ones because his businesses straddle different sectors. His aircraft spraying business will be allowed to re-open under level 3.
"That will be back running Tuesday. The only difference there is that we normally double up in transport," said Funnell.
"We have a couple of people in a vehicle going out to work, whether it's a helicopter or a truck. Whereas under level 3, we'll just be running an extra vehicle out so that everyone takes their own vehicle. Then we maintain the distancing on the job and talk via radios.
"The tourism, on the other side, has been the complete opposite. For us, that's turned off."
Garth Oakden, owner of Taupō River Rafting, says there's been a silver lining to lockdown.
"For the first week, I probably didn't get out of bed before 10 o'clock, it was a bit of a forced holiday!" he said.
"There's nothing that you can change because it's not in your hands, so in a sort of strange way, it was just awesome to stop.
"I guess from there on in, we've gone in and done stuff for the website, just working through to make sure we've got some things in place for when we can re-open.
"The frustrating thing is the rules were written to close us down, not to open us up again. It looks as though we'll be able to operate in level 2, but if there's still suggestion that non-essential travel shouldn't happen... There will be some people in Taupō who want to go rafting, but there won't be terribly many boats. We need those people coming out of Auckland and Wellington."
Cafes, bars and restaurants are among the hardest hit by the lockdown. And while some will re-open with pared back services next week, it won't work for everyone.
"From the moment of the announcement, I happened to be jumping into my ute," said Jude Messenger, owner of the Bistro in Taupō.
"Jacinda was making the announcement over the radio. It actually floored me. I wasn't expecting to go from [level] 2 to 3 to 4 in a moment. I honestly nearly burst into tears three times that day.
"The hospitality industry has got the finest margins of any business. Eight to 10 per cent is what a good business can get. If that's where people's margins are, there's no reserves.
"We need to open at some point - for me, that will be on Tuesday with a delivery and pick-up service. That means we need to order stock but we don't have cashflow to order that stock. And we're behind on accounts so we're asking suppliers to give us more stock, then we're hoping we're busy enough right from the get-go, to give us the cashflow to move forward.
"If, week by week, we aren't getting enough cashflow to A - catch up, and B - pay the new current... there's a lot of businesses that, even with the ability to trade now, are really going to struggle."
Despite those ongoing struggles, the mayor has faith that the town will bounce back.
"A lot of our business owners are very good operators and very good people," David Trewevas said.
"They will be spending this time, no doubt planning for the future. No doubt there will be casualties and, as central government has pointed out, there's not a lot we can do about that. But I think you will find that the Taupō, Tūrangi and Mangakino businesses are pretty resilient."
Messenger shares that positivity.
"My wife calls me the ultimate optimist, so I have nothing but optimism," he said.
"If the international travel industry is significantly reduced, there's a good chunk of New Zealanders who would still like to go on holiday. They may not go overseas but they're going to go somewhere else in New Zealand and Taupō is one of those places people love to come to."
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