– FEBRUARY 26, 2015

We are now in Roturua, which is a very active city with plenty of options for tourists.  They have natural geothermal wonders & spa opportunities, hikes, motor bike trails, lakes, forest and deep cultural opportunities with the Maori people.

We chose to start with the Zorb experience.

THE ZORB EXPERIENCE

For anyone who has never heard of Zorbing, it’s the recreation sport of rolling downhill inside an orb, generally made of transparent plastic.  This location was where the sport was created and they have three different courses to choose from. See the main course in the image below:

The main ZORB course.

At the left side of the image you see the travelator where they load the orbs and transport them to the top of the course.  The gravel road on the right is where they load up the people who paid into a van and then drive them to the top of the course.  At the top they select the orb for your ride, either a wet orb or a dry orb.

A wet orb has warm water poured into it so the rider gets completely soaked as they roll down the hill in a free for all.

The dry orb has a harness where they strap you in and you remain fixed as you roll down the hill over and over.

We chose to do the dual ride in the wet orb.  It was tossing us around like a pair of socks in the washing machine!  We were bouncing around everywhere and it seemed much longer than the 20 seconds it actually takes.

There was a discounted price for a second ride, so I sat out to rest the hip while Jill did a solo run in another wet orb.  See the series of photos below:

See Jill in the orb rolling on the right side of the image.

See Jill in the orb rolling.

Jill has been stopped by the staff and they are preparing to help her out of the orb.

This is how you exit the orb. Fun!

Tomorrow should contain some white water rafting.  Should be a great time.

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For more photos of our adventure go to our flickr account here.