Zorbing In Rotorua

Ask a New Zealander how to spell the word “die”, he’d probably spell it as “F-U-N”.

New Zealand is essentially one big theme park for grown-ups. If you ever got bored from riding childish rollercoasters in theme parks, NZ is the place to go. Apart from introducing the world’s first commercialised bungy jumping, the Kiwis has also invented another form of extreme sports called “Zorbing“.

The Zorb is basically this one giant plastic ball surrounded by a cushion of air. The whole concept behind zorbing is quite simple. To play, you climb your whole body into the Zorb. Then with some help, the ball (with you in it) is rolled off the top of a slope, then you bounce and spin and fall until you reached the end of the track downhill.
It’s a milder form of extreme sports. If you managed to remain on your two feet till the very end, they’ll even throw you a Zorb T-shirt in for free. Otherwise, just enjoy the very, very bumpy ride.
Trust the Kiwis to come up with stupid ideas and then make a lot of money from it all in the name of fun.

What happened to 2001? Not pretty enough is it?

Zorbing sites can be found throughout the world, but the original one is in Rotorua, New Zealand where this crazy sport began.
Rotorua is a small town about 3 hours drive south of Auckland. It is very popular destination among holidayers, largely because it is a geothermal area dotted with natural hot springs and mudpools.

One of Rotorua’s famous hot springs

I don’t know why people like to holiday here, because personally I don’t think it’s a pleasant city to be in. See, the unfortunate side effect of hot springs is that the entire town is practically filled with foul-smelling sulfuric gases. By “sulfuric gases”, I mean the air here smells like shit, literally.
The smell there is so bad, it’s like everyone in Rotorua is walking around with shit in their pants.

Behold, Mother Nature’s fart hole!

I wish I could upload the smell here onto kennysia.com to let you have a sample of how bad the air here is. I don’t know how the residents even managed to live in here under such torturous conditions. Maybe it’s a bit like when you discreetly let off a silent fart bomb in front of your friends. You don’t feel it yourself, but everyone around you are covering their noses to protect themselves from dying a slow painful death.
But enough about Rotorua and how shitty it smells.

Zorbing costs NZD45 / RM110 per person – which is expensive in real world terms, but cheap for the dose of serotonin-boost it provides.
The original Zorb is one that has harness straps inside or you to hold on to. Most people opt for the “hydro” option, where the Zorbs are filled with water for lubrication. And that’s the option I went for.

Click to check out the video. You might wanna turn off the speakers, unless you wanna hear me screaming and laughing in orgasmic delight. *shy*

From the outside, it looks like a giant golf ball. From the inside, it feels like being inside one big washing machine. As soon as I hit the first bump, I was thrown off balance and bounced around violently within the cushion walls of air. I couldn’t even stand on my feet! The whole thing lasted only a minute and a half, but it was craziness to the max from the get go.
Coming out from the tight wet hole of Zorb, I feel like I was born again.
Think Zorbing is only for the young and fearless? Think again.

It was so fun I almost shat in my pants.
Which is fine really. Because in Rotorua, everyone smells like they got shit in their pants.


Would love to have met up with a few people during my short transit in Singapore, but schedule a bit too tight lah! Next time can?

94 Replies to “Zorbing In Rotorua”

  1. sounds cool, kenny!!!
    makes me wanna there and try it.
    however, my exams…*cries*
    i’ll try it once i get to NZ. =P

  2. sounds cool, kenny!!!
    makes me wanna -go- there and try it.
    however, my exams…*cries*
    i’ll try it once i get to NZ. =P

  3. AYE AWESOME SHIT MAN. yeah i can smell it from here. i will try it and send you my video so you can laugh at me like how i laughed at you. hoho

  4. DAMN THAT SEEMS SOO FUN! but what if you puked in there? oh gosh that would be nasty.
    damnn i wanna do that! haha lucky guy

  5. there’s this song i loved ever since i heard it when i was small: it begins like this…”hurry hurry hurry home, love; hurry back to rotorua…”
    why u want to post all about the smell and spoil all my good memories!!! T_T
    anyway the zorb looks fun! nz definitely my choice of place to go XD

  6. been there earlier this year, done the hydro-zorbing twice!! it’s addictive, I tell you.. once with the straight course and once with the zig-zag course!

  7. sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo harumnya……fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart, fart…..

  8. Kenny, your last 2 sentence “It was so fun I almost shat in my pants”, should be “shit” or “shat”? Maybe it’s a new word for “shit” on Kenny’s dictionary.

  9. you’re now a zorbanaut!! how fun! they didn’t have the dry zorbing when i was there, so i gave it a miss. kinda regret it now though…=))

  10. ANOTHER Amazing Race thingy! ^_^ I love that show!
    Looked like fun! I would have taken two goes! On to enjoy and one to try and stay upright in 8-p Plus exchange rate is good to Australian dollars 😎

  11. Auckland isn’t the best holiday spot. But you gotta admit, the drive down to Rotorua is beautiful! Assuming of course that you drove… I’m not sure what it looks like in September though. I went in August last year…

  12. Huge attention attracting spam here. You know why? Cause I have nothing to do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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  13. Hrrm…..seems like you were going back to your earlier days…..way earlier. When you were entering the hole of the ball, seems like you were entering a gigantic uterus 😛

  14. well, im sorry if the smells of rotorua offended you so, but then again, which is worse? the “sulphuric gases” of rotorua or the tahi loji in malaysia? your choice…

  15. So first they bungee jump to thier death and now this. You never cease to amuse me.
    Looks like a golf ball indeed. & your screaming is priceless. (:

  16. KENNY, Kenny, Kenny, “it was craziness to the max from the get go”!?!?!?!?!?
    I can’t believe you wrote that! what, did you learn how to speak from a PEPSI commercial?

  17. You sound like you’re making sweet yet exciting love inside the ball and finally cum. LOL
    Thumbs up for the blog.

  18. this is the reason y i love reading ur blog kenny. i can almost feel the excitement of your zorbing experience too. ta 🙂

  19. hey kenny…that was the activity i suggested after you bungee jumped…..just didn’t know the name…and when i was at the hot sulphuric springs…my family and i saw native kids doing the All Black’s “war” dance…that was probably the only thing that coulda taken my puny 10 yr old mind of the smell….doesn’t smell shit lah…more like tons of rotten eggs….TONS!!!

  20. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
    kenny, you scream like a girl ..
    my dad was behind me and he was like “what is that guy doing, why he scream so funny?!”
    hahahahaha lol!!! lol, i can’t stop laughing hehe. glad you had fun!

  21. I didn’t know there were so many varieties. I just went zorbing 2 weeks ago down south of London. Personally, I preferred hydro compared to harness, and it really felt like being in a washing machine at top speed!
    Sounds like I need to head to NZ to fulfill all the sports that I can’t find here.
    Great post you got here.

  22. cool..its really cool..i wish that i can go to nz and try it myself…but im not rich as kenny!haha…its really sound like farting…haha…cool..cool…so…kenny, when u r free…hope that u can go to explore more those challenging games…then post it n let us enjoy too…!!!^_^*

  23. I watched the video and it felt like you’re were in ur moms’ womb and about to be delivered and all…
    The turbulence it seem like they were rushing you and mom to the hospital and you’re all bouncing up and down in the belly and all that. Like in a tumble dry mode. Spinning and shit.
    …and then there’s the hole where you can see the light where the so called surgeon was expecting (delivering) you and without much complication, you just slipped out.WOw! then being carried away…sideways, somehow. LOL .
    Hence, Kenny is born.
    Must be some dizzy ride, mate, aye?!! 😉
    Okay, i’m seeing and imagining stuff now. I think i’m still high.
    So i better stop crapping… >_

  24. Hey, i was googling bout motels in New Zealand and chanced upon your blog. I’ll be going to NZ with my family in Nov and I’m checking out the prices of motels/hotels and stuff now. Would you mind telling me where you stayed and approximately how much it cost etc? Or you went by tour? I would certainly appreciate it alot if you could reply me.
    Hit me a mail or something, my email add’s wendyoong@gmail.com. Thanks so much! 🙂

  25. hahaha!!! =)
    oh man. this is so chunteD !
    you think malaysians will ever come up with this kind of crap? what will the citizens actually do to the hot pool if we ever hav one? what do you think all the ministers will say? i think you should definately do a blog with your imagination if malaysia has all this things. im sure it’ll be hillarious

  26. WOII FUCKER KENNY SIA!!!. what gives you the right to delete my comment on your tagboard?. i didn’t say anything that merits a removal of content. you clearly see a little positive criticism as a threat to yourself. so what if you’re fat?. do something about it man. don’t live in denial.

  27. Man, I did Zorbing too in New Zealand! It’s crazy! My foot was fractured (on the bloody 2nd day of my trip) then so I did the strapped in version. I must say it’s exactly how you felt! A definite must do activity when you’re in NZ!
    Yes, I agree with you, the Kiwi’s are mad. When I was there, they came out with a prototype of bungy jumping in which you jump off not from a bridge, but from a parachute being pulled about by a speedboat at one of lakes in Queenstown. I don’t even know how that can work out.
    Good to see that you enjoyed NZ!

  28. Haha… zorbing’s very similar to seeing my hamster run in its transparent ball, but only its for human…

  29. hey kenny did u go to the cable car thing to bring u up the mountain and play on “The Luge”?
    oh u shud have gone to Mt Manganui dey have awesomee fresh cream donuts.. yumm

  30. seems like u enjoy ur trip…
    if not enough…
    go 2 dobi or loundry or wateva
    go inside the washing machine n press the start button
    then u will having another zorbing again…
    cuba jangan tak cuba…

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