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Published: July 28th 2009
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New Zealand is the self proclaimed adrenaline sports capital of the world & it's not hard to see why. Everywhere you go there is something adventurous to do, whether it be throwing yourself off a bridge/plane/tall building or taking a mountain hike. I'd love to do them all but money restrictions apply to me so i had to be more selective. that being said I've still managed to do quite a lot, & plan to do a bungy in Queenstown (but don't tell my mum ok!).
First up, after the diving of the previous blog, was seeing the caves at Waitomo. The place is famed for its huge population of glow worms but there are also some pretty exciting cave systems there. We entered the cave with a 35m absail through a narrow passage (which you can see in the photo). Once you squeeze through the passage the shaft opens up & you can appreciate how far down it is... "oh shit!" were the first words think I said as I dangled over the huge drop. I made it down in one piece although i'm sure i didn't look very professional (i should probably put my SAS application on hold
for a while). After the absail we walked through a couple of passageways & came to an edge & a sheer drop into blackness which we had to zip-line across. I was first for the absail, & i was also first for the zip-line which meant i couldn't see how far it was & since it was pitch black i was convinced i was going to smash into a wall or something. luckily I didn't. once everyone was across we were handed rubber tubes & told to jump the 7 feet into the freezing water. I wasn't so brave on this one & as i jumped in the cold water surged down my wet suit. Christ it was cold! We floated along the underground river for about 20 mins, & since it was pitch black we could really see the hundreds of glow worms clinging to the ceiling illuminating it like the night sky. It was a beautiful sight. We got to the end of the tubing & had to continue by wading, scrambling, swimming, & crawling our way through the caves which were at points only a few feet high & half filled with icy water. Lastly we had
to climb a couple of waterfalls which was cool until, finally, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and, scrambling up one last waterfall, we emmerged into the daylight. I definatly enjoyed my caving experience!
The next day we did zorbing in Rotorua. Zorbing is basically rolling downhill in a giant inflatable ball, either filled with water so you can slide or strapped in so you can roll. I chose the water option. It was actually more fun than I thought, although i was disappointed that you only got one run.
Also in Rotorua we did white water rafting. I'd always wanted to do white water rafting, and chose to do it here because it has the only commercially raftable grade 5 rapid (out of 6) in the world. It is a huge 7m drop off a waterfall, which has a 50% chance of capsizing the boat! pretty extreme. The first few rapids were exciting but only really warm-ups for the big one. As we lined up for the waterfall I had butterflies & the guy in the boat blew a whistle to indicate we were ready we anxiously waited for the return whistle to
confirm we were good to go. It felt like we were about to go over the trenches or something stupid! As we approached the instructor shouted "GET DOWN!" & we braised ourselfs for the drop. I remember falling & then being completely submerged under the water! Then we were in the daylight again, boat right way up, & we all jumped up celebrating! Awesome!
Finally we did some snowboarding. We knew we were coming to NZ in winter so decided to get good a snowboarding before we got here so we could take advantage. It was my first time on a mountain so it was so much fun, & the views were incredible! We were on the mountain, overlooking the perfect volcanic cone used in the movie, The Lord of the Rings as Mt Doom! After a bit of warming up on the junior slope we took the lift up the mountain. I think i perfected my turns & was really getting some speed up at points. It was a great feeling speeding down the slopes. Obviously, it wasn't all smooth riding & i went tits up a few times. Once i was cockily changing edge thinking "i'm getting
the hang of this" when the toe side dug in sending me flying face-first into the snow, flipping me completely over & landing me on my arse! That one hurt! sorry sophie I didn't get that one on video though!!
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