First trip up the mountain

On Wednesday this week we had our first snowboard of the year at Turoa. The weather hasn't been too flash so far this season, but we managed to get up this week with Simon and the kids seeing as it's school holidays. The weather has packed in again now for what looks like a few days, so all quiet here again.
Next Friday Mum and Dad arrive, then we're off to Taupo for a week. They've booked a pretty flash looking place with a spa pool and BBQ, although we won't be using that anytime soon. I think we'll end up going to Rotorua for the day, and maybe Napier weather dependent. During the week we are there it'll be Robyn' birthday so we're off to do a jetboat ride and some prawn fishing for her big day. She's not too impressed about turning 23....
Having a quiet night in tonight to watch the All Blacks first game of the year, a special fundraising game for Christchurch against Fiji.

White Water Rafting

We have been having some awful weather here in Ohakune, it has brought lots of snow but until today the ski fields weren’t open and the weather was stopping us doing anything. So, with the Kings staff, I went white water rafting with Rafting New Zealand. It was so much fun and even though it was cold and raining they gave us great gear so we were kept nice and warm and you get wet anyways when you’re rafting.
We were taken out by Luke and spent around 2 hours on grade 3-4 rapids, I had never been before and I loved it! We were given a fleece to wear next to our skin, then a wet suit, then another fleece, then a waterproof jacket. On our feet we had thick socks and wet suit booties; we had a beanie and a helmet and gloves as well. We were so well protected that at one point we got out of the raft walked up to a ledge and jumped in! The rapids were great and no one fell out luckily, part way through we floated through a flat bit of the river with a hot chocolate and chocolate covered marshmallows. Back at their base we had a hot shower, a hot dog and a beer – the perfect way to finish!

Gravity Canyon

The ski season has officially kicked off although it is slow going and not a lot of snow at the moment – only 61cm. However, because this is the busy time of year for Ohakune we are getting plenty of special offers and freebies through work. One of the freebies was a bridge swing at Gravity Canyon. I went along with the staff at Kings but James stayed at home (chicken…). Gravity Canyon is about an hour away from Ohakune and they do a bridge swing, a bungy jump and a flying fox off an 80m high bridge over the Rangitikei River. The scenery is amazing it’s such a nice place – that you can appreciate after you have done your activity, not before!
The bridge swing is something that can be done either solo or tandem, but seen as there were 7 of us in our group I volunteered to go solo and I went first! You start by walking out along the bridge to a little gated platform and you put on your harness, the staff (Mel) then hooks you up to the line and opens the gate and suspends you over the edge whilst they take photos like the one above. In my case though the photographer then had to run around to the viewing platform to take some more photos leaving me hanging for a couple of minutes. When all photos were taken Mel asked me how I wanted to do it and when I said ‘I don’t know’ she said ok you’re going NOW and pulled the cord that dropped me. You fall 80m before swinging out to the other side. I only just got a short scream out before I lost all my breath (although face still poised as if screaming!) but when it got to the swing bit it was incredible! The whole thing only lasts around 30seconds and then they hoist you back up to the bridge. It was very scary, I thought about backing out, it was great fun in the end and…it was free!

Check out their website http://www.gravitycanyon.co.nz/activities/swing/videos where you can watch videos of other people doing what I did!