Where the action is

Reading Time:5 minutes

Published: 12:00am, 9 Jul 2006

Rotorua. The name sounds like a machine designed to cut back the weeds of boredom. It means 'second lake' in Maori and it's a quiet town surrounded by stunning geothermal geysers, forests and crystal lakes. After 11 months and 22 countries, I am eager to recharge my travel batteries and New Zealand is just the place to do it. It might be down to an isolationist mentality, but Kiwis love jumping, sliding, biking, swinging, rolling, falling, everything-ing themselves to the edge, taking travellers along for the ride.

A few hours from Auckland on North Island, Rotorua is fast building a reputation as an adventure capital to rival the south's Queenstown. Here, even the land is extreme, the ground bubbling with volcanic heat, Earth blowing off steam right in the heart of town. After warming up with a 192-metre base-jump-by-wire from Auckland's Sky Tower, I head to Rotorua, ready to drain my adrenalin and take the action to the next level.

Zorbing

Let's build a giant, hollow plastic ball, jump inside it and roll down a hill! Zorbing, invented in Rotorua, is my chance, finally, to hop inside a tumble-drier (every child has thought about it). The Zorb is pushed 200 metres down a hill as I, strapped into a safety harness, bounce head over heels. I manage to stand for about a second before the Zorb tosses me around on its zig-zag course - like that one sock you always lose at the laundry - until naturally coming to a stop at the bottom. Green? A few more seconds and I would have decorated the plastic bubble with my lunch. Most Zorbonauts go for the Hydro Zorb, with no harness and a bucket of water in the middle. If you want to get wet and intimate, you can Zorb with a couple of friends. Later, soaked, rinsed and spun out, I bask in the sun to iron out my creases, catch my breath and ponder life as a garment. Zorbing costs NZ$45 ($210) a person. See www.zorb.com.

Skydiving

'I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer.' So says Muadib in Frank Herbert's Dune, and it's a mantra I've adopted since reading the book as a fearful teenager.