One of the things that was also a bit scary was that most of the platforms did not have handrails, although they *did* have a line around the trees in the center of the platforms for you to hook onto. They had us do some different things during the runs, like flap our arms like a bird or try and go upside-down, things like that. I didn't even try! I was quite happy, thank you, to make it to the next platform! They did, for one of the platforms, have us launch ourselves backwards. We stepped down a few steps, already facing backwards, and then just pushed off. It wasn't too bad, until my foot got caught!! I had my ankle brace on, so my foot couldn't point, and my boot hooked under one of the steps! For a moment I had the horrid image flash through my brain of my boot and brace all getting pulled off, and falling down into the abyss of the jungle below, never to be found!! It really was just for a second, and my boot did not even come close to coming off, but it scared me for a moment there!
There were a few long bridges that were a tad nerve-wracking, but not horribly so, as they had plenty of ropes for you to hang on to for "security".
But they also had a short bridge that was fairly narrow and had no side rails at all. You were totally hooked into the line above you, but it was still pretty scary. And to make it worse, they stopped folks part way across to try and get photos of folks leaning out over the abyss.
I was, at that point, *totally* incapable of doing that despite quite a bit of encouragement, so they just took a photo of me standing there on the bridge. Good enough! Would I have liked to have had a photo of me leaning out? Of course! Was I going to get one? No way!
Overall, even with all the rain, it was a very fun Zipline experience.
After we finished Ziplining, we headed back to the hotel to clean up (and dry up!) for dinner. For our dinner, we took the Skyline gondolas up to the "Stratosfare" Restaurant on top of Mount Ngongotaha (yes, I Googled that!) According to the itinerary, this was *supposed* to be dinner at a place called "Eat Street", but for whatever reason (I forgot to ask) this place was substituted. It was a very nice dinner, although I don't know how it would compare to Eat Street.
Unfortunately for us, the area below the Stratosfare was TOTALLY socked in. You can see us heading up into the thick cloud layer in this photo:
You could not see a thing below the gondolas or from the restaurant, which at first was pretty sad, because the restaurant had sweeping floor to ceiling windows meant to (normally) show off the amazing view.
Fortunately, as the evening went on, the clouds started to lift, and we were able to see the panoramic view of Rotorua below us.
The Stratosfare is an ENORMOUS buffet restaurant. The selection just went on and on and on! Pretty much anything you could think of, they had there. And the food was pretty good, too. There was just SO much food, I can't imagine that they don't have tons of food left over at night. Nobody left hungry!
Then it was back to the hotel to pack up and head to bed, as we were heading out to Christchurch and the South Island the next day!
Up Next: Day 6: Island Hopping