Beware of making casual off-the-cuff suggestions to kids.

My twin grand-nieces had their 11^th birthday recently, and it was arranged that they’d spend part of the day with me. I asked them if there was anything special that they’d like to do, and the answer was “shopping”. It seemed more of a formulaic response, than indicative of any real eagerness.

“No! Think of something better than that,” I exhorted them.

“Like what?” they came back with.

“Anything – ziplining,” I flung out, with no particular thought aforehand.

Their eyes lit up. There was no going back – ziplining it was.

I booked us in at the Christchurch Adventure Park, which claims to have the longest zipline in New Zealand. Being winter, it wasn’t too much of a surprise when the day of our zipline adventure dawned bleak and showery. In full accordance with Murphy’s Law, the day after was sunny, of course. I had no idea what the zipline experience would entail in its entirety, apart from the obvious experience of zipping down a long wire, so I made us all rug up with warm jackets, scarves, and boots.

The Adventure Park website gives few of the more mundane details about what to expect prior to the actual ziplining, so it was a case of finding out on the spot. First, we weighed in and our heights were measured, as there some restrictions for both of those. Then we harnessed-up, donned safety helmets, and loaded ourselves into a van, accompanied by the two young women in charge of the group of seven of us.

We left the park and drove uphill for about twenty minutes, eventually turning off onto a rugged, bumpy forest track. That went downhill for a way, coming to a stop at a small flat section of land. From there, we hiked down a little further on a wet and slippery foot track, lugging our cable trollies with us to the launch platform. The cable trollies are the piece of equipment that attaches us to the zipline, and they have a bit of heft to them.

Finally, it was zipline time! The question of who wanted to go first was met with an unequivocal “me” from my grand-nieces. They were duly attached to the cable, and sent zipping on their way with delighted shrieks. I suppose because I was their ‘responsible adult’, I went next, and soon got sent on my way, too. Yes, I did emit a couple of excited shrieks, as well. Ziplining is no time to be phlegmatic 😊

A few spots of rain started up during my whiz down the line, and it’s surprising how stingy they are on your face when heading into them at a fast rate. The wind also started turning me sideways, and not knowing how well that was going to work out, I kicked and twisted myself straight again. I was told afterwards that the equipment wouldn’t have allowed me to get turned around and upside down, but at the time I decided against blithely going sideways, just for the ‘shits and giggles’ it might bring. Irrespective of rain and inadvertently riding side-saddle for a way, it was exhilarating – and over too soon.

In hindsight, I should have gone before my grand-nieces, so I could have been at the bottom of the zipline before them, and taken photos of them coming into land. I had my phone in my coat pocket, but the harness I was in made getting at it somewhat of a wrestle, so I didn’t end up taking any other photos than the one of us in the van.

During the drive and walk to the zipline platform, I’d lost my bearings a bit, so it was with some surprise that I discovered we were only a few minutes’ walk back to the Adventure Park after we’d landed. All in all, the whole experience took about an hour, for around two minutes on the zipline – lol! But it was a fun two minutes, no doubt about that. The rest of it, although not exactly in the category of fun or thrilling, was still an interesting first-time experience.

On the way home, the twins and I dropped into see their mum at work during her lunch break. They enthusiastically corroborated that the zipline had indeed been exciting, and declared to a couple of mum’s workmates, who stopped by to chat, that they’d like to bungy jump for their next birthday. Yikes!

Then it was onto getting their fingernails flashed up as another of their birthday presents. From zipline to beauty parlour – such is a day in the life of eleven-year-olds.