New Zealand, Mokai Canyon & Hunterville: Flying Fox Thrills and Shepherd's Shemozzle

After a gruelling day of hiking in Tongariro National Park in New Zealand's North Island, we drove towards Mokai Canyon to complete a journey on the world's fastest flying fox (100mph!). A flying fox was a long zipline where riders could be transported at high speeds from one end of the line to the other. Mokai Gravity Canyon was set up with that attraction and a few others, and we were looking forward to "flying" on it the next morning. We had to wait until the morning because we left Tongariro around 5:00pm, which was when the flying fox ride closed for the day. In addition to going on the flying fox and driving around Mokai Canyon, we also spent time in the afternoon at a small town called Hunterville, where an annual event was being held - the Hunterville Huntaway festival.

The drive from Tongariro was pleasant and we continued to catch glimpses of Mount Ruapehu in the distance for several miles as we travelled south of the national park along highway 49 to highway 1, where we continued south and, once again, observed rolling green hills, rivers and, of course, plenty of sheep. We passed many quaint towns that reminded us of ones we had seen in the United States during our summer road trip there. In one particular town, we decided to stop and grab some dinner, a town called Taihape, famous for hosting the largest annual gumboot-throwing competition in New Zealand.

There was a table of bulls' testicles near the finish line, and we'd heard they had to be picked up by teeth and carried to the finish

A gumboot was a large rubber boot that farmers wore, and throwing them the farthest was the aim of every competitor who entered such a contest. Right smack dab in the middle of the tiny town was an enormous gumboot statue and a few businesses that had capitalised on the infamous event. To keep with the town's mantra, we ended up choosing a restaurant named "Gumboot Manor", where we shared a large plate of fish and chips. When we ordered the food, we were given a small gumboot marked with the number 20, so the staff would know where to bring the food once it was ready. However, it wouldn't have been hard to figure out where our food needed to be delivered, since only a couple of other people were in the place!

The fish and chips tasted great and, once we left Gumboot Manor, we drove a few more miles to get closer to the road turning off the highway towards Mokai Gravity Canyon. There was a picnic area a couple of miles away from the junction and we made camp for the night there, to make our drive the next morning quick and easy. That night was the first time we used the shower inside our campervan and, eager to try it out, we took turns that evening taking quick showers whilst parked at the picnic area, washing off the grime from our long 6-hour hike at Tongariro National Park.

The shower was simple to use and it provided us with hot water that was heated by gas. It took about 20 minutes for enough water to be heated for a five minute shower, and after one of us finished with the shower, the other one had to wait 20 minutes for the water to heat up again. We had to be careful not to use up our entire water supply, so we would have water to wash dishes and make a pot of tea in the morning; therefore, the showers were as quick as we could make them. Our first attempt at using the showers was successful; not only were we clean, but we also had enough water for the dishes and tea in the morning.

The road leading to Mokai Gravity Canyon wound its way through lush green countryside and farmland that was covered with rugged hills. Often, the views appeared as something out of a film set, with unusual pointy cones of land jutting up and covered with thick, bright green grass, clearly the result of some kind of volcanic activity in the past. There were several points during the drive where the road merged into one lane and we had to cross one of New Zealand's many one-lane bridges. At the bridges, the road took us over Mokai Canyon and we were able to catch a glimpse of the enormous channel carved out of that part of New Zealand.

The farms we passed were covered in sheep, cows and/or deer, in true Kiwi style, and some of them had small ponds covered by some kind of red algae or pond weed, which stood out as a nice contrast against the green grass. After driving for 20 minutes along the country road we took from the highway, we arrived at the adventure ride site, which was called Mokai Gravity Canyon, and parked Bessie, our campervan, so we could walk inside and book our place on the flying fox. Just before going inside, we walked out on to a viewing deck and then onto a one-lane bridge so we could look down into the canyon.

The view from the bridge was amazing; we were about 300 feet up from the base of the canyon, where a large river was flowing quite rapidly in the same direction our flying fox was due to travel. To increase our heartbeats, we looked up to the platform where the flying fox was due to depart; the platform was another 200 feet or so up from the bridge, meaning that we would be starting our thrill ride from a height of over 500 feet!

When we booked ourselves onto the ride, we had to walk up a steep and curvy road to get to the departure platform. There, a couple of people working the ride hooked us into the flying fox and we found ourselves hanging on our stomachs, side by side, awaiting our take-off. The canyon below us was colossal and the end of the zipline was way off in the distance. The ride travelled at extremely fast speeds and 3/4 of a mile before reaching the end of the zipline. We rode the flying fox in a Superman position and it felt like we were flying. The journey was so fast that small droplets of rain - it was slightly drizzling that morning - felt like large hailstones as they hit our faces during our swoop over the canyon. Luckily, one of the employees had given us protective glasses to wear during the ride to shield our eyes from renegade rain drops.

At the end of the zipline, we ended up swinging back to the middle of the canyon before moving forward again. That happened a few times and then we finally came to rest about 2/3 of the way down the line. We had to wait for a small mechanical contraption to connect to the machinery above our harnesses and then push us back up to the platform where we had taken off. Going backwards and back to the platform really slowly was scarier than the ride had been because we could see the entire canyon below us and we were facing straight down into it, since we were being pulled feet first up to the platform. The entire thing was captured on DVD and we will no doubt show lucky visitors to the new flat that we plan on renting in London when we return there in January, once we find one, that is.

Whilst waiting for our DVD to be finalised, we each ordered coffees, and Kyle enjoyed a rocky road snack, which Dan passed on eating since it contained marshmallows, something that he thought was disgusting. The DVD movie of our flying fox journey had a droplet of water on it the entire time because the employees at the departure platform forgot to wipe off the camera lens before our ride; we asked for a discount and ended up buying a DVD for half the price. When we left Mokai Gravity Canyon, we enjoyed the scenery again as we travelled back along the country road to the highway where we continued our drive south.

Hunterville was our next stop but was, by no means, on our itinerary. Ironically, we saw a sign advertising the annual "Shepherd's Shemozzle" race when we made it back onto the highway after leaving Mokai Canyon, but we thought nothing of it as we were just heading to Wellington. When we finally drove into Hunterville, we noticed the main street blocked off and hundreds of people milling about the area. It was early afternoon and we were curious as to what was going on, having already forgotten about the sign we saw advertising some kind of race, so we pulled over to the side of the road and walked into the crowd. It was a Saturday and we happened to be there during the annual Hunterville Huntaway festival.

The street was lined with food stalls, children's events, tiered seating, a market and many other things. The small town's public library was selling used books and we bought a few to add to our collection, and we also bought a couple of tasty sausage sandwiches with grilled onions and ketchup. Down one side lane, many farmers stood decked out in much-too-short-for-the-weather shorts with their huntaways, or sheep dogs. The weather was cold that afternoon but some of the farmers were also barefoot!

Apparently, the race was called the "Shepherd's Shemozzle" and was a race that farmers entered with their huntaways. As the crowd's anticipation for the start of the race increased, the farmers tried to pump up their dogs' spirits; we also saw a group of people in kilts and other traditional Scottish clothing tuning their bagpipes and other musical instruments. It was that group of people that would lead the racers to the starting line, but the town mayor was also out that day, in his best suit, to kick off the event. To start the race, the farmers took to one side of the street and their huntaways were held back on the other side, ready to run across to their masters. When the whistle blew and the race began, there was massive pandemonium because someone had thrown a lot of dog food on the ground in front of all of the dogs, distracting them and causing many owners trouble in retrieving their animals for the remainder of the race.

We didn't stick around for the rest of the race, which involved the farmers picking up their dogs and running with them for a mile or so, completing obstacles along the way. We wish we could have seen the end of the race because there was a table of bulls' testicles near the finish line, and we'd heard they had to be picked up by teeth and carried to the finish, but we didn't know if that requirement was for the farmers or their huntaways. The race started an hour after we arrived and we had to continue travelling to Wellington that day, so we decided to miss the bulls' balls section and keep it within our imagination.

Back in our campervan and back on highway 1, we drove further south and stopped off at the town of Bulls to ask a man working at the town's information centre whether or not we could book a ferry ticket to the South Island through him. You can find out all about this and our stop in Palmerston North before we made it to Wellington that evening, or just outside Wellington, actually. Click on to the next journal entry, our friends...