going places: Day 6 - Christchurch

It was a morning of sleepy heads and admin - me awake early but plugging away at yesterday's blog post, kids punching out zzzzz's until 10:00am, all of us getting our washing done. Steve was the most active and nicked across the road to a park area to practice throwing his new frisbee.

We're in an Airbnb - extremely spacious with a luxurious king-sized bed, gorgeous stained glass, excellent floorboards in the bathroom, a dome shower that contains the steam and a cute pup who looks like Alf.

At the nice early time of 11:00am we headed into town - about a 5 minute walk. Em and I checked out the Quake Centre and the boys watched a funny clown show - part of a month long busker festival on here at the moment. The Quake Centre was good - obviously a different experience to a clown show - and included footage and info about the quake, but it was the personal stories that really highlighted the devastation and chaos of 22 Feb 2011. Christchurch still bears the scars with a mix of disused buildings, gaping holes, new builds and ongoing restorations.

It was a quick visit to town, because we'd booked ourselves in for just a touch more excitement at the Adrenaline Forest. Historically I would have said I was scared of heights, but after yesterday's efforts Hallelujah - I'm cured! We spent 3 hours at this place, starting with a brief on how to harness and clip in and out, followed by a quick zip line practice then off we went.

Started with a tiddler - a mere 2 to 3 metres off the ground then straight to level 4 and onto the real deal - levels 5, 5b and 6 - a whopping 25m up with zip lines zigging this way and that.

Can't believe chickeny pants me did it! I'd be interested how you go from being scared of heights to scrambling around the top of 25m tall trees. My theory - start small, don't look down and focus and I mean really FOCUS on clipping in and out.

I had one blooper - sat down in my harness on the the zipline WITHOUT putting the pulley on first - outcome - stationery dangling. Did it right in front of the instructor too and it took a ridiculous amount of energy trying to get back on the platform. How embarrassment! 😐

I de-harnessed about 30 mins before everyone else to take photos, hence no piccies of me 😡. But - on the plus side the last one Steve and the kids did was a challenge doozy and they were knackered. At least I ended on a metaphorical high 😁 instead of going for too long, getting weak and crotchety and basically ending on a literal low 😡.

And boy oh boy were we all ready for dinner. Steve chose a winner of a place - super upmarket food court kind of joint - in an area that looked like it was going to be a busker-less version of Mitchell (and I may have said words to this effect) but it turned out to be a hidden gem...See....