Canyoning!

So this past weekend we went on some epic adventures. It started with going to the beach Takapuna on Friday, which was absolutely gorgeous. Saturday was our CANYONING trip, hands down, best day of my life. We met at base travel at 10:00 and drove about an hour to the Waitakere Ranges, where people hike a lot. After a long and windy ride through the mountains we stopped at a small little shack where we met the other guides and got all our gear. We got wetsuits, helmets, waterproof socks, harnesses, andddd some awesome crocs for our journey. But first before putting it all on, we had to walk about 40 minutes to the canyons... more like an epic mountain climb I would say. We were all dripping in sweat walking up hills through forests on a small little path. It was a lot of fun though, but I'm definitely sore. Then we finally reached the canyon, which was just endless waterfalls as far as you could see... unreal. Throughout the walk through the canyons we jumped off waterfalls, slid down rocks (one time even backwards!), and repelled down steep and slippery waterfalls!

The repelling was a little scary, but more fun and exciting than anything. We basically were attached to a rope and had to slowly move ourselves down the rope with the gear they gave us. We were attached to the rope the whole time with our harnesses, but we moved down the waterfall ourselves, leaning back with our feet on the waterfall. The only thing that was a little nerve-wracking was when we'd slip as we were repelling... then you'd just be hanging in the middle of a waterfall without any support from your feet. There were some waterfalls we repelled down where we were basically getting splashed in the face the entire time which was an experience! Soooo much fun! There was one point when we were canyoning when my friend and I were laying down next to a waterfall in the sun waiting for everyone to finish repelling and we were like, if we could imagine anywhere in the world we'd want to be, this would be it. AMAZING!