Skyline Rotorua | Zorb Rotorua
Coasterz 'n' Canyonz Blog Day 11
Big Balls, Big Hills, Big Weather!!! A Walk in the Park
Relocating to Rotorua yesterday evening, we started the day with a walk in the park next to the hotel to see the hot mud springs.
Ian's not too impressed with this activity! Next - Zorbing
It had to be done in the birth-place of Zorbing, even though we had done it before. Adrian sat this one out, whilst Ian tried the 2 Hydro zorbs (Zig Zag and "The Drop") - basically, loose inside the ball with a bucket of water or two to keep you comfortable, and one "dry" zorb - The "Fast Lane"!. Weather was turning a bit nasty, but it didn't matter for this activity.
Dry "Fast lane"
Wet "Zig Zag" ("The drop" is behind the trees on the left)
Ian exiting one of the wet drops.
Next, a quick bounce down the road, to Skyline Rotorua.
A nice activity centre with a gondola lift up to the top of the hill overlooking the town, lake and surrounding scenery.
One of the activities at the top was this unusual motion master 4D type cinema, except rather than the seats moving in motion to the film, the whole cinema moved!!!
Next up was "Skyswing" - similar to a SkyCoaster but with a proper seat, rather than a harness.
As the day went on, the weather got worse. Didn't matter too much except........
......... the main reason for visiting - the infamous Luge tracks.Basically, you sit on a tea-tray, with a handle that steer's and brakes - well that's the theory. Give the track heavy rainfall and the braking effectiveness of handle reduces very significantly.
With tight bends, a wet track and next to no brakes, the downhill tracks became very scary (read thrilling!).There are 3 tracks to work your way through, a scenic luge (to practice the cart driving), intermediate luge and advanced luge. In the wet, the intermediate became the advanced, and the advanced became the "Oh Sh*t" luge.
Nobody warned us about the size of the critters in New Zealand
"Is this where they filmed Jurassic Park?"
Adrian discovering the brakes don't work in the wet!
View from the top of the gondola.
Rotorua
On the way to our next hotel there was a storm brewing.....
And then, something we never planned on our itinerary....
Storm Chasing!!!! Yes, we finally got to see a tornado - just as we pulled into tonight's hotel, this classic rope tornado dropped about 2 miles north of us. Needless to say, Ian is still recovering.Until tomorrow.....
