This weekend I went 'Canyoning' in Piha Canyon with 5 people from my work. Canyoning is basically jumping, sliding, squeezing, and rappelling down a river canyon. It was a very enjoyable and cool sport.

Basically you get all dressed up into a wetsuit and a climbing harness, and then you hike about a half hour or hour into the forest. From there you then work your way back down the river canyon, doing 4 rappels. Two were short rappels and good to get you familiar with the equiptment and how it work. And then the third was very long, high, and pretty much vertical for 50% of it. This one was my favorite. For the first time, I was really able to rapel just like you see on TV. I really got into a good rythm of pushing out from the wall with my feet, and then letting the rope go enough so that I would slide down a bunch until I came back to the wall and then push out again. It was quite cool and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

And my fear of heights didn't even act up at all! I was quite surprised. I guess it's might be because your actually not looking down, and you only really see the cliff face. Also perhaps it was also because I was concentrating hard and having a lot fun.

I am lucky because there are a few people from my work who are not from New Zealand, and so they are keen on doing a lot of these activities. One collegue from India (Arjun) and his wife (Punima) went whitewater rafting with us in Rotorura and they loved it. Also on this trip was a woman from the Phillipeans (Joie) and a Kiwi (Sherie) who loves these kind of trips.

Unfortunately though not all of my collegues enjoyed it. It takes a little skill in order to do it, and both Arjun and especially his wife had quite a bit of trouble with it. They just could not grasp the concept of leaning back on the ropes and putting your feet on the cliff. Instead they always seemed to want to 'climb' down the cliff, leaving themselves verticle with the wall. This caused them to very uncomfortably 'slide' and 'bang' into the cliff wall on the way down. It looked absolutely horrible, and I could see why they did not enjoy it at all. Especially Punima who I think almost had a meltdown. Arjun told me later that they had the longest fight they had ever had since they got married and that she had to take Monday off of work in order to recouver (Canyoning was on Saturday). Ouch. I don't think I am going to be able to convince them to do anymore adventurous activities.

After the big rappel, it was lunch, and then a little easier the rest of the way down. The only other really cool thing was the 4th rapel, which was straight down the middle of a waterfall. This was quite cool. However, with my contacts I found I had to hold my head down in order keep my eyes open and thus could not see as much as I wanted.

Also the water was !damn! cold, and we had to stay out of it as much as possible. It was not too cold with the wetsuit on when you were not in the water, but whenever you were in the water, you were just trying to get out of it as soon as possible because it was unbearably cold!

We also saw two fresh water eels, one of which they named (can't remember the name). It lives in a particular pond, and was a good 4-5 feet long. Very cool. The guide feed him the lunch leftovers. After that it was a couple of lame jumps, the highest being probably about 6 meters, and then we were back out of the canyon.

We spent about a half hour on Piha beach, which I had already been to previously, and then it was back to Auckland. A pretty cool trip, but I wish it was longer with more rapelling. Although, the next day I was actually quite sore in weird places. I guess muscles that you usually don't use. Well worth it, and I am now very excited to go 'canyoning' where it was invented, in Switzerland. Which, in my opinion, is the most beautiful country in the world. New Zealand is probably only top 5... For amount, range and quality of outdoor activities though it is definitely number one!