Zorbing: Like a Hamster in a Wheel

When I was in Rotorua, NZ, the one activity I had to do was zorbing. Unfortunately, I managed to miss the last shuttle bus and totally missed out on my chance to do this bizarre adventure sport. Later, when in Brisbane, I was very excited to find out that zorbing had an outpost on the Gold Coast, which was a much more reasonable day trip than New Zealand. However, my friends that were studying abroad with me thought I was a bit crazy and compared the sport to being a hamster in a wheel, and therefore did not accompany me on a trip down there. I did not want to zorb alone, since I felt it would be much more fun with friends, so I never got to try before departing the land down under.

For those that don’t know, zorbing is a brilliant, kiwi-invented sport that involves jumping inside a large, flexible plastic ball suspended inside another large, flexible plastic ball, and then rolling down a hill at speeds up to 50km/h inside it. I don’t know how exactly anyone comes up with an idea like that, but I’m glad they did. You have the choice of either being strapped in dry, where apparently you feel weightless when at the top of the ball, but you’re really spinning too quick to tell, strapped in with a large amount of water sloshing around (aptly called the “Wash Cycle”, or not strapped in with a large amount of water (the “Hydro-Zorb”). The Hydrozorb is even winter-friendly, because they use hot water to make it like a “traveling sauna.” I was there in the summer so it was plenty warm enough as it was. For children, there is supposed to be a “Zylinder,” which is a slower ride, but I’m not sure if they offer it at the Gold Coast because I didn’t see one, but it could have been in the back of the shed getting fixed.

I didn’t know about this zorbing trip until we got in the car to head to the Gold Coast, because it was my surprise birthday present. My boyfriend did well in keeping it a complete surprise until he handed me the directions—and the only place I had ever heard of in Pimpama was zorbing. It was a perfect present though, because he knew how much I wanted to go.

Quick Tips:

James had purchased a package prior to our arrival at the zorb park, but you can get there and purchase rides at the desk. The only problem with this is that if it is a busy day, you might have to wait for all the pre-booked rides. However, the day we went was slightly overcast (OK, mostly pouring rain), so there weren’t too many other people there, and since we had pre-booked, we got our rides in pretty quickly. We didn’t mind waiting for a couple people to roll down the hill though, because that provides amusement in itself.

If you get easily motion sick, as I do, the Hydrozorb will be the most fun ride. Even the less motion sick get a bit woozy on the strapped in rides, although I’m not quite as sure about the Wash Cycle since it was broken when we were there. However, there is much less spinning involved in the Hydrozorb and I rode in it twice with no motion sickness at all, while one ride in the dry zorb was enough to tie my stomach in knots.

Don’t expect to just come to the zorb park, take one ride, and then leave. I would advise at least trying a single and a double Hydrozorb, and possibly a strapped in zorb as well. It’s an experience you’ll definitely want to repeat and when you’ve come all this way, you might as well! In the same vein, definitely come with a friend—there will be many more laughs and you’ll have someone to take great pictures so you can show your friends this nutty sport when you get home!

Best Way To Get Around:

Getting there was fairly simple—you just drive down the Pacific Highway until just before Coomera, where there is an exit that leads to the Old Pacific Highway. Continue down this and the zorb park, along with a few other activities like race car driving, is on the right hand side. You can also get there by public transport by taking the Gold Coast Express train from Brisbane and getting off at Coomera, where you can call for a ride to the park.

The package that James purchased, which he obviously refused to tell me the price of but I’m sure was in the $200 range because of the prices I saw listed in the office, consisted of a dry ride for each of us, a hydrozorb for each of us, and a hydrozorb together. Instead of having the dry ride, our package stated that we could choose the “Wash Cycle” instead—but this option turned out to not be available, since the wet, strapped-in zorb had run off the course and now had a large hole in it.

I got to go first, being the “birthday girl,” so I was taken on a very bumpy ride up to the top of the zorbing hill, which actually had two parts to it. The part of the hill that we rolled down was just a straight shot to the bottom, while the other half of the hill was more of a slalom, with curves and bumps to steer you around in all sorts of weird directions. However, since it was bad weather and there was wind running down the hill, they didn’t want to use this side of the course, since it has problems even on the sunniest day with actually keeping the zorb on track. Once, a zorb actually ended up flying off the course, over all protective guards, and rolling towards the work shed! Sounds scary until you realize that the person was in a giant plastic ball—so the only party involved with a chance of getting hurt was the zorb itself.

Once I got to the top, the zorb was re-inflated and I jumped in and got all strapped up. They are serious about keeping you in one place, with straps for your arms, body, and feet. Then, I was sent rolling down the hill backwards. It was exciting, but not nearly as exciting as I had envisioned, and really just felt like…rolling down a hill. I felt mildly sick afterwards, but not too badly.

Next, it was James’ turn to roll down the hill, so he went through the same process that I did and soon was at the bottom of the hill getting unstrapped as well. He said that he enjoyed it, but I could tell that he was slightly disappointed in the ride as well, especially since he kept pointing out that he wished that the “Wash Cycle” didn’t have a massive hole in it.

Overall, while fun, the dry zorb was slightly nausea-inducing for me. Even though they advertise that you won’t feel sick because you are only rotating once every 10 meters, it is enough to at least make you feel slightly dizzy, especially when rolling backwards and you can’t exactly focus on any given object for very long. Despite my friends’ comments, I didn’t exactly feel like a hamster in a wheel—unless I was a hamster in a very demented person’s wheel where I got strapped in and then spun around.

The hydrozorb offers something completely different from both strapped-in zorbs, since you are free to move (and splash) around the zorb as much as you like. There is also a unique challenge to this kind of zorb—if you run down the entire hill (maybe 150m long) without falling over once, you win a free zorb ride of your choice. However, since zorb rides are fairly expensive at around $40 a pop, it’s obvious that this isn’t as simple as it sounds.

The guy at the front desk, who organized who got sent up the hill next, gave us a choice of taking our hydrozorb for two either first or second. He said that maybe if we went together first, then we would get used to the feel of the zorb a bit better and we could better do the challenge on our own, since the individual hydrozorb is the only one that offers the challenge. We took his advice and headed to the top of the hill again.

This time, they filled up the zorb with maybe 40 liters of bright blue water—dyed with food coloring so you can tell the difference between the zorb and water from the outside, I guess. As the guy was filling up the zorb with a hose, he sprayed us down as well—which we weren’t exactly expecting. Apparently, this was to help us easily slide into the zorb.

After James jumped into the zorb like Superman, I did the same. I landed on top of him and got stuck with my legs half out of the zorb, and we both burst out laughing. We continued laughing through us both standing up for the beginning of the roll and then immediately falling over pretty much as soon as the zorb started moving at all. He ended up sitting on top of me as he frantically tried to claw his way up into a standing position, while I just hung out in the bottom of the zorb, fully aware that it is pretty near impossible trying to stand up at all. James definitely appreciated my help in getting him to stand up, when I kept knocking him over too!

We couldn’t stop laughing for the entire roll down the hill, nor afterwards when we were gracefully dumped out of the zorb. It was so much fun, and having another person in there just added to it. It’s hilarious how difficult it is to stand up in the zorb when it is moving (it’s bad enough when it’s standing still!). I don’t know why it’s so entertaining, but it is. Immediately after getting out of the zorb, I wanted to go again—so it’s a good thing I still had my individual hydrozorb to go!

For our last round of zorb rides, James and I both had individual hydrozorb rolls. Since I had gone first on the first roll, and because I think James just wanted to laugh at me not standing up first, I went first again. By this point, the rain had really set in and it was absolutely peeing it down, which was supposedly good for my attempting the Hydrozorb Challenge since the roll down the hill would be slightly slower. However, as much as the zorbing guy was trying to make us believe that everything was in our favor and of course we could win ourselves a free ride, I was fairly certain that neither of us were miracle workers or had Velcro feet.

The setup for the individual hydrozorb was pretty much the same as that for two people, except there was one less person to jump in the zorb. I was totally soaked by this point—a little bit from the rain, and a lot from the fact that I had already rolled around in 40 liters of blue water—but the guy filling up the zorb decided that I obviously wasn’t wet enough to easily get in the zorb and turned the hose on me a bit more.

After I ungracefully entered the zorb once again, I readied myself for the run down the hill. I leaned forward in an attempt to best balance myself for when the zorb was actually rolling, and then the roll began. I made it approximately 5 meters before I completely ate it and ended up sitting waist deep in water. I decided to take it easy and splash around a bit while kicking back and relaxing. This really was quite fun, although not quite as much as getting smashed by someone else.

Although there were signs at the bottom of the hill that warned that you shouldn’t get on the grass unless riding or working there, they let you walk up to the zorb (as long as you do it quickly and just as the ride is ending) and take pictures of your friend who is inside/falling out. This let us get some pretty amusing pictures, especially of me falling out of the zorb even more gracefully than I got in (I seriously felt like I was being born again when I squeezed through the all-too-tiny exit in a deluge of water), and later on, a great one of James splashing water out of the zorb.

Next was James’ turn. I didn’t go to the top of the hill with him, but luckily the zorbs are relatively see-through so you can see the person inside, even when they are at the top and you are at the very bottom.

This review is continued in The Individual Hydrozorb: James.

This review is a continuation of The Individual Hydrozorb: Me.

James did pretty well in the challenge, although he was convinced he did pretty poorly until he saw the picture I had taken with him at least 10 or so meters down the hill and still standing up! Although he didn’t make it much farther than that, and didn’t quite win the free zorb ride, he made it at least twice as far as I did. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give him a free zorb ride for that and the zorbing director didn’t quite feel it merited one either. Once he fell over, James decided to do the opposite of what I did—rather than knowing he won’t be able to stand up again and just kicking back, he instead did everything he could to get back on his feet. It was amusing not just to watch him continually stand up and fall down, but also to see the zorb bouncing down the hill. I got some pretty good pictures of it, but I wish I had a video tape of it because he definitely didn’t go calmly in a straight line down the hill.

That was the end of our zorb package and we decided that, while enticing to attempt to win the Hydrozorb challenge by rolling again and again and again, we a) did not have enough money for that and b) wanted to enjoy the zorb experience instead of maybe riding one time too many and getting bored. Plus, I was incredibly happy with what James had given me for my birthday and couldn’t ask for anything more!

We ended up staying for a little while longer, watching a few other adventurous zorbonauts (yes, that is what a person riding in a zorb is called). One guy decided to do the same as James and bounced down the hill, but not with quite the level of excitement that James had. One father/daughter combo was particularly funny—the daughter seemed a bit worried about the ride beforehand, while the dad was raring to go. They both made it to the bottom and the daughter seemed much more excited about the ride after she had finished it!

We could have stayed for much longer, watching various rides down the hill (depending on how many more people actually showed on such a gloomy day), but since it was my last day in Australia, we decided to go elsewhere. I thoroughly enjoyed the zorb experience and would recommend it to absolutely anyone. But beware—although one ride seems fairly cheap compared to other adventure sports (read: skydiving/bungee jumping) at $40 a pop (even though this does seem rather expensive compared to Dreamworld—in itself expensive, at $60 a ticket—but this is for much more than a 1-minute-long ride), once you go once, you’ll want to zorb again and again!