A New Zealand Must-Do: A Supreme Zip Lining Experience With Rotorua Canopy Tours!
Posing for a photo along the Cliff Walk.
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A sunny lakeside drive
I hit the road round 8.30am, after a quick stop at Jord Espresso at The Hub for a much needed soy mocha. It’s already winter here in New Zealand, yet we’re often still blessed with sunny days and Saturday was no exception. I didn’t have to be in Rotorua until 10am, so I took my time as I drove lakeside and soaked in the views.
My first zip lining adventure was way back in 2017 (also with Rotorua Canopy Tours), with my friend Tamizan. It came at a time when I wanted to face my fear of heights, and face it I did! It would be another two years before the Ultimate Tour was built and after seeing their teaser video, I knew I just had to do it. I bought the voucher in 2018 just before I left for Peru, so I guess you can say that this adventure was two years in the making.
Zip Lining on the original tour with rotorua canopy tours
Rotorua Canopy Tours
You can find Rotorua Canopy Tours at 147 Fairy Springs Road, Rotorua. It’s well sign-posted and easy to find. Fairy Springs Road is pretty much where you’ll find a lot of the outdoor attractions in Rotorua, like Skyline gondolas and luge, the Zorb, Rainbow Springs and the Mitai Maori Village. There are plenty of things to see and do here.
Our guides for the day were Zania and Natalie, who were bubbly and friendly and definitely put at ease those who had never been before. There were eight of us on the tour that day, and three had also done the original tour. We had a 20 minute van ride before we reached the car park at Dansey Road Scenic Reserve, which we spent getting to know a bit more about the people in our tour. It turned out that three others were also from Whakatāne.
The Ultimate Canopy Tour
Why would you pay more to do the Ultimate Canopy Tour instead of the original? In a nutshell, it’s longer, higher, with more suspension bridges and they also added a couple more activities along the way. It’s a 3.5 hour adventure walking through a pristine, virgin forest and where you zip above trees (sometimes alongside) that predates humans in New Zealand.
Each zip platform has three steps with no hand rails - this allows you to get into a sitting position and lessens the chance of an atomic wedgie. Jokes, I didn’t even get a wedgie. Gosh, I still remember how scared I felt when I stepped down the stairs for the first time back in 2017. I have to say, any adventure that needs a harness and helmet just feels so much more bad-ass, doesn’t it?
During check-in, I got chatting to Martin from Orewa. His partner was supposed to be on the tour too, but unfortunately got a migraine and couldn’t join us. This was his first time zip lining, and we chatted about the different hikes where he lived - he and his partner are avid hikers. Martin also spent a lot of his spare time helping to set possum traps, and was very interested to learn about the pest control and conservation efforts of the Canopy Conservation Trust.
looking down from up high
I have spent most of my life looking up, but this time the best views come from looking down! Some highlights for me were the amazing suspension bridges - I’ve yet to walk a suspension bridge that didn’t have an awesome view. I also really enjoyed the rocky cliff walk, it’s 50m up and gave you an incredible view of the forest canopy below. Although, I wished that I walked it slower because it was pretty short.
The 400m tandem zip is the longest on the tour - it’s so long that you can’t even see the platform on the other side. Two zips run parallel and the challenge is to beat your partner to the other side. We learned the cannon ball technique - pretty much the foetal position sitting up, which helps you build up speed. I raced Martin and apparently only lost by a couple of metres. Even though I’m much smaller than him (the bigger you are the faster you’ll go), being able to tuck into a tight cannon ball did help me to pick up speed in the last twenty metres.
Three and half hours just flew by and in my opinion this tour definitely lived up to the hype in that first teaser video. If reading this blog got you hyped too, go and book yourself the Ultimate Canopy Tour, because it’s definitely a New Zealand must-do in my books!
fivefootronna is Ronna Grace Funtelar - a thirtyish adventurer, graphic designer and spoken word artist.
A woman with a curious mind who lives for hiking mountains, outdoor adventures and eating pizza. She has a unique brand of optimism that is a combination of her great enthusiasm for life and cups of coffee during the day.