Canyoning!
Posted by Sarah O'Neill , Tuesday, 17 May 2011 16:42
On Monday we drove out to the 'Elevation Cafe' to the west of Auckland towards the Waitaki range where the canyon was. We had arranged to be picked up from there rather than the city centre. They guy turned up in his van a little late, as he had been waiting for another couple in the city who had not turned up, so it was just the two of us! Our guide Neil drove us to their base to get suited up in what seems like our usual attire lately, the wetsuit, booties and helmet! We also had some croc like shoes and a harness to wear. We both had to carry a backpack with all of this in, which was quite heavy, as the walk up to the top was about 30 mins, and easier not wearing your gear! The recent rain had made it a terrible path, that was awfully muddy and although the croc shoes were ace for gripping on rocks etc, they were terrible for the slippery mud! It took us a while to get up, and we both fell on our asses a few times! 
We got to the top and put all our gear on ready. Neil asked us to pose 'extreme' for the beginning of our adventure, so here is is!!! We began by walking down a river and coming to one of many waterfalls that we jumped off! Some we 
could 'freestyle' and others were to be done rather specifically for safety. I always adopted the nose holding pose regardless, where as Ben was much more adventurous! It was a huge feat in itself just for me to jump off some of them, I don't like going under water at all, and it's kind of inevitable! This was the group jump, but since it was just Ben and I making up 'the group', it was just the two of us! The jumps were great, and we did so many that in the end I wasn't too scared. It was bit nerve racking to do the 'controlled' ones, as I was worried I wouldn't land in the right place, or 'miss that massive rock there'!!! but managaed ok!
We made our way down the river, walking was difficult as the bottom was so uneven, so we took a tumble many a time! The pic is of me having fallen already, and then Ben taking a tumble right behind me! We also went down some natural water slides, down a 
waterfall! The first one we did looked like great fun, until he said we had to go down head first on our backs as it was safest! So we trusted our guide, though I always sent Ben down first! You can just about see Ben's feet here at the bottom of the slide! The next big challenge was a huge 30 metre abseil down a waterfall! It looked pretty scary and I must admit I was a little reluctant! Ben went first and 
was all done in about 8 mins, so I reasoned to myself that no matter how bad it was it would be over quite quickly, and I was attached to a safety line, so I was safe. It was a bit different to the cave where I sort of just lowered myself down, for this I had to keep my legs out straight and actually walk myself down, and then through a 
waterfall! It was so nice to be at the bottom when it was all done, but I was really proud of myself!
Getting on the plane for Fiji right now, so will have to finish this one off another time! Bye for a while, no internet in the middle of nowhere!
Back again! After two weeks in Fiji visiting four of the beautiful islands we are now in Hawaii and I can post the blogs that I wrote while we were there! Here's the end of our canyoning adventure!
We stopped for lunch and I did get a bit cold at that point, but was ok again once we got moving!
We did a few more jumps, one off a particularly high rock face, which was a bit daunting! Somehow I managed to land bottom first with my legs out in front of me, which made an almighty sound according to Ben, and stung my leg really bad! I came up and Ben was looking quite concerned, then to add insult to injury I had a bloody nose! We later figured out that I had gouged a piece of skin off when holding my nose for the jump, it bled for ages! We later saw I also had a whopper of a bruise on the back of my leg! We did another sort of abseil where 
Neil did all the rope work and we just walked down the wall, can you believe it was on this one that I slipped, lost my footing, banged against the wall, and was subsequently lowered down like a winch! All in all we did 2 long abseils, one kind of abseil, lots and lots of jumping off waterfalls and had lots of fun! I felt pushed to the brink again most o
f the day, but I must admit things got easier as the day went on, and I even slightly enjoyed the last abseil as Neil told me my technique was excellent! We had a long walk up, up and more up to get back to the van, which was exhausting after the day we’d had! I was so glad to see the van, and then it was just a ten minute ride back to our van, and then 20 mins back to the campsite. The hot shower was so welcome at that point!
We had a quick turn around, ready to go back out again for a nice meal! Ben had won a $100 voucher from Jucy for a posh restaurant in Auckland while we’d been Australia, so we’d been waiting to use it. We were going to use it on our last night, but they were doing some fancy and expensive wine night, so we opted for Monday instead. We found the Jucy hotel to pick up the voucher, and after an initial ‘we don’t know what you’re talking about’ moment, the voucher was located and the restaurant was just down the road. It was very nice indeed, and we had a lovely meal, splashing out for starters, mains and dessert adding a bit of extra cash to the voucher. I started with duck liver parfait with a lovely chutney and crustini, while Ben had a venison dish with kumara mash (not sure what kumara mash is, but he really liked it, even though he’s not a fan of mash!). Then we both had duck leg and truffled mash which was yummy. I then had pear and date sticky pudding, while Ben had the chocolate torte with chocolate sorbet. It was so nice to sit in nice surroundings and have dinner bought to us, not have to wash up in the camp kitchen etc! What a treat!
The next day was spent sorting and packing! We made sure we had everything we needed for Fiji, taking a last trip to the ‘Warehouse’ shop to see if we could find flippers for Ben, however we were unsuccessful. We then got our big bags down which had been stored up on the top bed in the van for the whole 5 weeks, and some of the clothes were a bit damp, so I did a big load of washing, and aired some things in the sunshine. We both repacked our bags and cursed how much stuff we had! We decided to leave behind our sleeping bags and gloves and scarves etc we had bought, hoping not to need them again! We were all packed up and had a relaxing evening, Ben did lamb chops for dinner while I cooked the nearest thing to chips we could make, shallow fried slices of potato!
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