Canyoning in Wanaka

Wanaka offers almost a similar amount of adrenaline raising activities. One of them being canyoning. Due to weather a tandem skydive was not possible. The tour left quite early at 9.00 and we drove for 45 minutes into the Mount Aspiring national park to the canyoning site. The drive in itself was already rewarding, with beautiful scenery of the Matukituki valley. 

The first thing to do was to get the right gear,  wetsuits thermal underwear and gloves. We had to climb up the mountain for about an hour and then the adventure started. The first thing to do was to abseil a 8 meter passage. Unlike the abseils I have done in Europe these ones did not have smooth vertical walls. However the first one was easy and we ended up in the first pool. Now there were 3 options, either a jump or a slide or abseiling into the next pool 12 meters down. We all chose the slide option and to be honest i was a bit scared, but it all happened so quickly and i do not regret it at all.

After a couple of more abseils we ended up at a section were you could slide into a couple of pools. And the next section offered some nice jumps as well. Due to the wetsuits the cold water was not really a problem, and due to the small group size 4 + instructor we never had to wait long. The last few slides offered the option of going face down into the pool, which was exciting as well. However at the end of the tour (we spend 3 hours in the canyon) I really started to feel tired. When leaving the canyon we used a rope swing which was a nice one as well. All in all it was a great experience and I will do this again in europe. 

After reaching the base camp again we had a nice lunch, and then drove back to town. By then it was 5 o'clock and I was really beat. To be honest it took me most of today to recover, and I do have a couple of sore arms. But it was well worth the experience.

The plan for tomorrow depends largely on the weather, either we go for a nice hike (Rob Roy peak track). Or I travel to the westcoast, which seems to have nice weather on wednesday.