So we set off early on Saturday morning for our 3 hour drive south to Rotorua stopping enroute for a quick energy sugar boost/ stretch legs time at a cafe in a lovely little town called Cambridge - a quaint little town with quite a British feel to it packed full of antique shops. After our round of muffins and hot chocolates, and fast forward an hour, we arrived for our three hour zip lining rainforest adventure. Well all I can say is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant and a must do for anyone seeking a little adventure in Rotorua.
After a brief introduction and helmet and harness kitting out session, our group of ten were lead by our two instructors Richard and Shane through the rainforest. When everyone else precariously took a step backward when faced with the question of who wants to go first - our youngest's hand shot up - oh the gift of naivety! So off he went shooting along the first zip wire, disappearing amongst the foliage to the next platform, closely followed by his brother.
Along the way we were told about the various birds that used to inhabit the forrest, most of which are sadly now extinct - mainly due to the introduction of mammals to the island such as the rats which caught a free ride over on the boats, rabbits, ferrets (introduced to control the rabbits) and the possums. Unfortunately being flightless birds their only defence was to freeze and stand still, so the New Zealand birds really didn't stand a chance.
Apparently when Captain Cook first came to the island he could hear the bird song from 2 miles away, and when asked to stand still we were surrounded by pure silence, not a single chirp, very sad. We learnt about the conservation project underway aimed at reducing the amount of predators, for which some of the money of our tickets went on - so a truly worthwhile cause.
After our bit of excitement we decided on a light spot of crazy golf - a rematch in Dan's eyes from back in the day when I whipped his butt back in Portershead... oh I'll never let him forget! So here we are trying to teach our children the rights and wrongs, that it's OK to loose, and to loose gracefully, there can only be one winner etc... but oh no this all goes to pot here. Dan's competitive monster rears it's ugly head - not in a loud or aggressive way, but competitive silence - it was all in his eyes, calculating the score as he went, working out his strategy for the next move.
Just for the record, alas the pressure was just too much and Dan sadly didn't win (again)... hee hee hee, loving it!
We then tootled on back to our hotel - Hotel Novetel, a really good find in an excellent central location for Rotorua close to the lake. There was a big concert going on in the field outside our Novetel Hotel so we watched the opening Haka ceremony and then we slipped away into the town for a bite to eat.
Despite being way past the boys bedtime we quickly got changed into our swimsuits and headed down to the hotel spa (well it would be rude not to squeeze in one spa trip when in Rotorua). The pool area consisted of a swimming pool and two spa pools... the tip of my toe was the only brave (or stupid) part of my body that entered the thermal hot pool, at 40 degrees, how on earth can that be good for you?... and then back off to bed to visit the inside of our eye lids.
No comments:
Post a Comment