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On the way to Taupo,
9 of us were dropped of for something called "Rock'n
Ropes", while most of the others went to a helicopter ride / jetboat
combo and also visiting "the craters of the moon" thermal area.
Well, I was one of the crazy rock'n ropers, and it will be close to
impossible to explain what that is and especially how it feels once
your done with it: Ok, the course has several large wooden poles (about
10 - 15 meters) standing upright. Between are steel cables, a hanging
bridge, a wooden bar ... the idea of the course is to challenge yourself
and see how much you like (or hate) heights. Secured by a belaying
system (basically a rope attached to you and kept just lose enough
so you do not feel it) you cross over from pole to pole over the cables,
holding your hands on another, while on the bridge and the bar, no
hands ! just balancing ... and looking down, and hearing the silly
remarks of the group.
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I
encountered 2 very opposite group dynamics happening here: one is
the support and encouragement that one gives the other... and on the
other and of the spectrum you have "peer pressure". That one was especially
true for the last 2 activities:
- a)
climping up a 12 m pole and try to stand on it, then just jump
and try to catch a hanging trapez. It is not so much about actually
getting the trapez, but to overcome the fear and actually jump
!!! out of 9, 4 cought the trapez, but only 2 had hands strong
enough to actually keep hanging there.
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b) a giant swing: pretty much like what I did in the morning,
but not with a comfy seat, basically just me playing Tarzan. But
then again, the first few seconds were freefall, very scary (it
also did not help that the platform from which we jumped was wiggling
around)
But in the end,
everyone did everything, no one slip or fell, and we just had a fantastic
time and adrenaline in aboundance.
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We
were then transported to our hotel (very nice one) and at 6:15 PM
we gathered to go over to our night activity: A cruise with food and
fishing and karaoke. Very nice to be out on Lake Taupo around sunset.
We played a silly game, similar to musical chairs. Just a table rotating
so that everyone got to talk to everyone within 15 minutes. After
that the big question was: who recalls all names !!! And there were
some brave souls stepping forward (people could build a team of 2),
and the winner was April, not only did she do it all on one brain
alone, but she even had the names of the crew already in her head
!!!
The trout fishing was fun, I caught something, but it was thrown back
(just got back from spawning, meat would be not tender enough)
After the yummy dinner, the karaoke machine was fired up, but it was
more a group oriented thing (opposed to singing alone and really be
embarresed) and the one song I had to sing along (summer of 69) is
way out of my range (vocal and tastewise)
After about an hour of howling around and really pissing off the fish
beneath us, we returned to the harbour, went to town, most of the
group went to some irish pub. But I was tired from the day, returned
to the hotel, had a good night beer and went to bed. |
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