Taihape - Gravity Canyon

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Wed 27th:
Left Whakapapa and saw a foreign object. Ice. On the floor. We’re used to Gecko Lizzards, Monitor lizards, palm trees. Tropical stuff. What the hell is ice doing on the floor. No. Just No.

So we left Mordor and got some great pics as we left. Also saw a Kea, which is like a giant big Hawk/Eagle thing, but looks different.

You see loads of Mountain Hawk things here or Falcons, they just sit in the middle of a road staring you down and then fly off just before you get to them. One had this big mouse or small rat thing and picked it up with one foot and just flew off. They are big.
Anyway, this one looked different.

Next we got to Okahune, a small town anf carried on through the Karioi forest and past Waioura and on into Taihape - Renowned as the Gumboot throwing capital of the world.
So we checked into a Campsite and got ready for the night. Ate, got into bed, everythings all nice and sorted and BANG. Our heater breaks. All night we could see our breath inside the van. We slept with fleeces on under the quilt and it was still cold.

Thurs 28th:
Got up, phoned the van people and they told us to buy a new heater the same size and they’ll refund us. Matt was almost hysterical at her stupidity. The same physical size or the same wattage. But in any case we headed into town and got a new heater. One designed to be a ‘Primary heating source for an average sized living area’. Hah. Compact but really really powerful.

Then we drove up to Gravity Canyon to do what we had booked. First was a gruelling climb up to the flying fox. This is basically a zip-line that is 180 metres above the water, which you travel on lying down facing forward and go 1.1km in distance at around 110mph. Which is quite scary, but also good fun. The slow journey back up as a machine pulls you about 1mph backwards can be a bit scary. Especially when it starts clicking and clanging and stopping and starting whilst you’re dangling 180 metres above a river.

Our second activity was a Tandem bungee-swing. We thought a swing would be nice and good fun. We didn’t even know about the drop part. So there we are hanging 100 metres up from a bridge all smiling, waiting to swing out. The woman asks if we are ready. We casually answer yes. An 80 metre drop before you start to swing. The highest one in New Zealand aswell. You just can’t breathe as you go down. Even scarier when you’re not expecting to drop and you think the swing has just broken. Very scary.

After that Leanne chickened out of the tandem bungee so the nice girl working there got us a NZ$200 dollar discount by saying the rope was frozen, let us have another go at the flying fox for NZ$30 each and gave us the DVD for free. How nice was that.

After that we left and got lost about a billion times. The haven’t quite grasped the basic concept of road-signs, markings, lights, anything here. So we got back and got into our lovely cabin - which comes free with the Gravity Canyon things and plugged in our heater. Bloody thing works too well, even on it’s lowest setting you start to sweat. So we drank sparkling Rose and watched the DVD over and over.

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