Monday, 22nd January 2018
What began as a lazy leisure day due to the rain in Rotorua, it ended with an adrenaline filled activity that sent the blood pumping through our veins at really high speed. I can forgive the weather gods that they brought us rain as even then, we could enjoy this outdoor activity!
The above pictures show our leisure time in the Government Gardens with beautifully laid lawns. The grounds were gifted by the Maori chiefs to the British back in late 1800’s and as this was a swampy area, it cost quite a bit to have the grounds drained and then built a spa and sanatorium so that the rich and wealthy could come here “for the cure”. The sanatorium is now the Museum which is currently under refurbishment and the oldest hotel in Rotorua was built round the same time. By the way, that’s me doing the Haka, seeing that we missed this activity!!
And now back to to my story:
We had read up about a tree top walk in a redwood forest and were thinking of doing that – seemed cool! But then when we arrived at the i-Site centre, we saw an even better activity – a zipline canopy tour in New Zealand’s only native forest!
Yes! Both Gerry and I got excited about this – I had already wanted to go ziplining and had seen such an activity, which we could do, when in Australia, however now that this adventure was so close, we just could not miss the opportunity!!
We bought our tickets at the i-Site centre and this included pick up and drop off from our motel. Our tour was at 16.30 and pick up was at 15.45 – we arrived in good time to be fitted with all the gear. As the weather was not dry, we were given good rain jackets and then harnesses, ropes and metal clasps and then whizzed off to the native forest of the Mamaku Plateau which was only a few minutes drive away from Rotorua.
We had a three-hour tour escorted by two highly trained Kiwi guides. The group was made up of 10 people which included a young Belgian couple, a Chinese son and mother from Hong Kong, a mother and 2 teenage daughters from Wellington, a young German woman (her husband did the tour in the morning and because they have a baby girl they had to do the tour separately) and us two – 65 plussers! The brochure said that you are never too old to do this tour as their oldest visitor was 93 years old and they have had more than 100 people over the age of 75!!
Most important of all, this was an eco tour – we were told that back in 2012 the forest was a silent forest. Why? It had been overrun by possums, rats and stoats that had killed almost every bird in the area and decimated the surrounding eco system. The Rotorua Canopy Tours is out on a mission to restore the environment in this forest, which has trees, which are more than 500 years old! Traps have been set out over a 35km-trapping network and through modern technology; thousands of pests have been removed. And this was evident during our tour, as we could see and hear the birds, which have come back to the forest.
Back to the fun part, we had 6 ziplines with over 650 meters and in total a network of 1.2km of ziplines; 2 treetop swingbridges, and an education on the prehistoric forest where we all were for our activity. Some trees are so high – similiar to a 14 storey building and some of the platforms were rigged halfway up these trees. Some of these platforms were up to 22 meters above the ground. We had a couple of participants who were afraid of heights but as there were giant treetops, the actual height was never prominent and hence they had no fear of height!!.
The highlight of this expedition was the 220 meter “Tui Song” zipline – we were on a canopy built round a 500 year ol indigenous rimu tree and we were told that we could fly over the valley onto a platform which was hidden in the distance. Well my flight was with only one wing…… and I managed that well enough and my Tui song started first on a fearful but excited note but in less than halfway, I was one happy excited Tui bird!!! Gerry too enjoyed the excitement but he was constantly scrutinizing the technical parts of the structures!!
Gerry taking his zipline trips
What amazed me most is the fact that we placed our trust in our two guides – Levin and Scott – they told us jump and we did that!!! But they had given us such good instructions and were very knowledgeable that we could not do otherwise!
That’s me setting off on the zip line, crossing a swing bridge and then handsfree on another swing bridge and being greeting by Gerry at the other end!
It was a most exhilarating experience and we are both looking forward to enjoying more of these exciting adventures when we get to Australia – but rest assured, we wont be doing any bungy jumping, which incidentally was invented here in New Zealand!!
Tomorrow we are heading off to Auckland, our last leg of our trip to New Zealand. There we will be meeting up with my cousins, Mark and Philip whom I’ve never met and staying with my old school friend, Anisia! We will also be meeting up with Rocky and Sarah ( Rocky had stayed over at Gerry’s place in NL when travelling as a young man in Europe). Looking forward to this!
