Friday night saw Dave turn 25, so in typical Dave style the penthouse at the Bel Air was hired and a bit of a doo was held. The night went well, Dave was drinking out of coffee percolator as there were no glasses of fitting size, everyone was blind and there was only one hole in the wall !

Today, as stage two for the birthday celebrations; we went Zorbing at the Gold Coast venue near Pimpama. Until now, I’ve only ever seen it on TV briefly and never realised just how big the damn things are. The Zorbs are constructed out of a semi flexible PVC and come in two varieties, a harness and a hydro version. Both are of equivalent size, approximately 3.5M in diametre with an inner sphere suspended in the middle through guy wires.

I went the harness path as I thought the off centre weight rolling around would be cool. It would be fair to say, I under-estimated just how much force was involved rolling down a 120m 30 degree decline grass slope! As you roll off the starting platform, your first roll is quite gentle. However, from that point onwards you are going that fast, that as your weight hits the bottom, you are bending the Zorb out of shape! Midway down our slope, it actually feels like you are physically lifting off the ground, or very close to it.

We also had quite a few people in our group try the hydro version as well. Same sort of deal, you hop inside it, they throw in about 60L of warm water to lubricate the PVC and shove you off the starting platform. They have a standing deal, that if you can ‘run’ inside the Zorb down the hill, you’ll get another ride thrown in for free. A couple tried it unsuccessfully, however John managed to make it about a third the way down, lose control and then splash, flip, tumble and roll his way to a stand still.

If you get a chance, I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot; it was a blast. I’ll hopefully have some photos to show you shortly.