Sand Boarding

Kiwis love their sports. Nearly everyone you meet is passionate about this team or that sport, and the majority of the population enjoys an active lifestyle with plenty of time spent outside. Bungee jumping had its start in Queenstown, on the South Island. High school kids learn to ski. Mountain biking, surfing, rugby, snowboarding, and tramping are just a tiny glimpse of the options for things to do in this beautiful country. My roommate and I have gone biking, I've watched rugby, and have already made plans for tramping up the mountain as soon as a bit of the snow melts (Mt. Taranaki being "the mountain").

 Last month, I was introduced to a sport I had never dreamed of existing: sand boarding. I was on a trip up to the Northern tip of the North Island (which is breathtaking, I highly recommend it to anyone planning to visit NZ). I hadn't made a lot of plans for my trip up North, just thought that I would embrace whatever came my way. So when I found a bus tour that would get me to several places I might not otherwise be able to see I jumped at the opportunity. Our bus driver casually mentioned in the morning that we'd maybe get to see some sand dunes, so I was crossing my fingers it would happen. About mid-way through the afternoon our bus driver asked us if we wanted to do something cool, to which we said of course, and so he promptly drove the bus right off the highway onto what may or may not have been a dirt path/road/trail.

We soon found ourselves amongst sand dunes. I'm not positive how tall they were. Our bus driver gave us an estimate of how many meters tall but my metric conversions are still a work in progress, not to mention I was more interested in staring at the sight out the window, so I failed to actually retain the information. But if I had to guess I'd say 2-3 stories high.

As we all hopped off the bus to meander around a bit our wonderful tour guide pulled a bunch of boards/sleds from the storage compartment on the bus. He then announced that anyone who wanted could sand board. So what is sand boarding? Well, it's basically sledding down a hill. That is actually sand. Yep. I did that :) Think of a giant, quite steep hill covered in wet sand instead of snow (well actually not just covered in sand, but IS sand), and pretend you're in shorts and a tanktop instead of boots and coat and hat/gloves, and you hop on a sled or toboggan or whatever and down you go.

So here's the method to sand boarding. You lay on the board on your tummy, so that you're going down head first. You hold on for dear life, and you keep your mouth shut to avoid eating sand, because well it's just not very tasty! If you want to go faster, you keep your feet off the ground. If you want to slow down, dig your toes into the sand. And when you get to the bottom, hold on til your board stops because the sand is not quite as cushioney to fall onto as snow. Due to the wind I couldn't take pictures of when we were sand boarding because I didn't want sand in my camera, but I did get some pictures of the dunes through the bus window. Climbing up the dunes was harder than I'd thought it would be. It starts out easy since it's wet, then you've climbed awhile and you start wondering if you'll actually get to the top, and then you get close to the top and it gets much harder to climb because the wind has dried it out, so every time you take a step you just kinda sink up to your knees. Then you get to the top and hurry up and board back down so you don't get blown away :)