Canyoning in Wanaka

December 30th was spent canyoning outside of Wanaka. We were scheduled to do the "Big Nige" trip, but the water levels were so high that they only let us do the "Niger Stream" trip, which was pretty extreme with the amount of water pumping through the canyon! When we first arrived, we had to hike up a hill with all of our gear. This might have been the most difficult part of the day, but the scenery was nice!

Then we put on our super thick wetsuits, helmets, and harnesses and started our adventure. We got to abseil down a few large waterfalls like the one seen here.

We also got to do some ziplining, some cliff jumps (including one really high one!), and some sliding down water chutes (including one head first!). The sliding was my favorite part.

Sometimes you didn't even know what the bottom looked like; you just had to trust the guides and slide down into a big pool of water at the bottom. The canyon was awesome; it was like a naturally occurring water park!



















Canyoning made for a really fun day full of adventure, and we're so glad we did it. I'll end with a video of Zack doing one of the jumps with an oh-so-graceful landing!