ZORBING and the Luge!!

Saturday morning we woke up early to go to a flea market and then head to the Luge! At the flea market we bought some more souvenirs and got YUMMY scones to eat for breakfast. NZ has this really good syrup that was yummy on the scones. After filling our tummies, we headed over to the Luge, which is pretty much like doing the Alpine Slide in Park City. 

We got to chose which track we wanted to race on each time we went down. There were three different tracks: scenic, intermediate, or advanced. Advanced was by far my favorite because it had a couple of big drops and we could go really fast. But intermediate was longer so that was fun too. We got to go down 5 different times and so we tried to go faster and bigger each time. One of the girls in our group actually made it her goal not to use her brakes the entire time....bad idea. She ended up biffing it off of her cart and scraping up her knee pretty bad. I didn't go THAT fast. haha. But it was fun to push the bars forward and speed down the hill. 

After the Luge we did ZORBING. OH MY GOODNESS.....It was so much fun. I can't believe how much fun Zorbing is. I honestly don't remember the last time I laughed that hard or had that much fun. We had to go in groups of 3 for our discount so me, Margo, and Brooke went in a ball together (and tried to race the other girls down the hill). 

Zorbing is kind of hard to explain, so it would probably make more sense to find a YouTube video or something online to fully understand what it is. But pretty much it is this giant hamster ball that is filled up with hot water. You get inside the ball and then the ball rolls down the hill with you in it...going REALLY fast. I thought we would just be like thrown around and get really SICK, but it wasn't like that at all. Because the ball is moving so fast, you pretty much just coast along the bottom of it like it is a slip n' slide. So pretty much we were on a really fast, enclosed, hot water, slip n' slide, going down a hill. . . .with three girls, at the same time. haha. 

At one point, the people not in the balls were able to go lay out on the track and have the people that were in the balls, roll over them. It was really funny looking actually. It didn't hurt at all to have the ball roll on us, it was only a little pressure for a second and then the ball was on to the next person. I can't really write the whole Zorbing experience in words.

All I know is that it was. . .

AWESOME!!

$1.00 scones at the flea market. yummy!

5 rides on the Luge :)

We had to ride the gondola up the mountain so that we could do the
race tracks!

Fun in Rotorua :)

Here we go

First time down we took the scenic track.

You just get on the little carts, pull the brakes towards you to stop, and
push away from you to. . .GOOOO!

So much fun.

Once we got to the bottom of the tracks we rode a little ski lift back to the
top of the gondola. This picture shows some of the tracks we raced on.

Pretty view on the gondola ride back down to the car.

Time for. . .

OGO, a.k.a Zorbing

Sheep on my right, rolling down the hill in a hamster
ball on my left.

They first load you into the car with the zorbs attached to the back, drive
you up the hill, and put you in the balls!

Getting ready

Long and fast zorbing tracks. 

And we're off!

Wahoooooo!

Kirsten, Tiare, and Brittany VS. Margo, me, and Brooke

My group is in the yellow Zorb.

we won :)

Round one of Zorbing complete. . .get ready for round two!! (we got to
roll down the hill two separate times)

All our faces as we realized that James was Zorbing down by himself
on the zig-zag track!

It was so funny to see his legs flying around in the ball.

We LOVE James!

He's hilarious haha oh man :)

There are two tracks: the speed track, which is the straight down track
that we all went on; and then the zig-zag track that James and
Chris and Atticus went on.

You bounce around A LOT more in the zig-zag one. Atticus said it's not as
fun because you don't go nearly as fast, but it is fun to bounce around more.

Father and son in the Zorb

Then we got a little crazy and went and laid on the track. It was funny to
watch the ball roll on top of everyone. 

Getting smashed!

That's us in the ball rolling on top of everyone.

Just landing at the bottom of the hill. It always was sad when they unzipped
the zipper because it was way WARM inside and really cold outside. 

Oh man. I cannot even explain how fun it was. IT WAS SO FUN. We were
laughing so hard!!!

I think at one point down the hill I was holding Brooke's leg and
Margo was rolling on top of her. Poor Brooke.

All of us 20 crazy Zorbing girls!

The man who invented Zorbing, himself. He sure makes a lot of money
off of the funniest idea ever. He was way nice too and gave us a really
good group discount, a free second ride, and a free c.d. of pictures!

These pictures were all taken from my camera so there are repeats.

This kind of shows the steepness of the hill!

This is where the Zorbs stay until the car comes to pick them up
and put them in the trailer to take back up the hill.

Just before Zorbing. This Zorbing ball actually has a harness where you
get strapped in and you full on roll down the hill with the ball. So
you go up and down and up and down. . .around and around and around.
I've heard it can get you pretty sick haha.

I liked our water Zorb better.

Zorbing group

close up of us going down

Zorbing is definitely SWEET AS!


p.s. Zorbing started in NZ but we found out that there are a couple of
Zorbing places in America on the east coast. Any family reunions
 coming up? :)