This morning we had another early start and headed off to Muriwai which was about an hour away from Auckland, for our ‘Tree Adventures’. Once we’d checked in and got our harnesses, helmets and safety lines, we had our safety briefing and headed out to have an adventure. It is a high ropes course in a forest of incredibly tall pine trees (similar to ‘Go Ape’ in UK).
The course involved climbing up rope ladders and across various obstacles at varying heights off the ground. It involved a lot of balance and much ‘going near the edge’ (sorry Mum!), but at least you are attached to something at all times, so if you did slip or fall off, you wouldn’t plummet all the way to the ground; instead you’d dangle about for a bit and wait to get rescued! Each mini course had a different set of things to do to get around, such swinging like a budgie on a bird-style swing, edging along a single wire, swinging on a rope like Tarzan across to a cargo net, stepping on swinging bridges and a ‘tree surf board’. At the end of each mini course, there would be a flying fox zip line which was lots of fun as you built up much speed as you whizzed along.
It was really strenuous as you have to do a lot of holding on and using much upper body strength (in my case, what upper body strength?!). I was lucky in that I am not particularly bothered about heights – I mean, 16m can’t possibly be as bad as 15,000 feet?!) but poor Mike had a few moments where he really shouldn’t have looked down! He made it round fine though and neither of us fell off anything at any point, so we were very pleased with ourselves, if a bit achy! The course took us about 3 hours to complete, so we were quite tired at the end!
After we’d got our breath back, we headed to an out of town shopping complex called ‘Westfield’ – although it was not exactly the same as Shepherd’s Bush! We first decided to have a well earned Starbucks. We then spent the rest of the afternoon having a leisurely stroll about the shops and bought a few bits and pieces. Once we were all shopped out, we drove back to the hostel and chilled out for a bit and caught up on CNN – still no clear idea about what is going on with the election; really weird. We collected our laundry from the launderette and I was horrified to see what a mess they had made of it – they had shoved it all in together and as a result a couple of my light-coloured tops were wrecked as they now looked like they had been badly dip-dyed in grey. Grrrr! Not impressed. I made a fuss and the best I could do was get them to not charge me at all for any of the washing. Great, eh? Well, that’s the last time I will trust a so-called professional with my washing – I will go back to the reliable methods of washing clothes in the shower and sink!
In the evening, we went over to Mike’s uncle’s house for dinner. With my marvellous navigation skills and a bit of help from the GPS on Mike’s Blackberry, we managed to find it without too much bother – the house was off the map we’ve been using! Along the way, I pointed out something to Mike that has been bugging me for ages – apparently NZ road-people (I don’t know who is in charge of roads) don’t think the general public can read very well. The reason I think this is because their road markings are written backwards – so the first word that the car comes to is the first word you should read, which sounds sensible in theory but is not actually a good idea, as I think you’d automatically read it as one – for example I would read the picture here as ‘Lane Bus’ not ‘Bus Lane’!
Anyway, we had a nice evening with John and Donna, talking about all the things we have been doing over the last couple of weeks, they’re a lovely couple and were very welcoming. John cooked us some lovely fush, oopes, I mean fish (seriously, I am beginning to worry about my accent; I have spent so long taking the mick out of the NZ accent, I think I am beginning to do it subconsciously! That will make me very unpopular in Oz!) and Donna made a delicious sticky, ‘self-saucing’ chocolate cake! Mmmmmm! We didn’t stay too late at John & Donna’s because Mike had to pack his stuff, ready for his flight home tomorrow. I helped by pointing at things and giving him more stuff to cram in his already-full bag! I hope it all makes it back safely!
Once that was done, we went to the pub round the corner and had a couple of beers to celebrate a fun roadtrip together and not having killed each other! Back at the hostel we put on the tv and low and behold what was on but LOTR, so we watched that again, just because it seemed the right thing to do and I tried as best I could to refrain from asking lots of stupid questions!
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