Zipping About
- Rebecca Grattage
- May 5, 2024
- 4 min read
Sunday was also a relatively more relaxed day. I started off my day solo with a walk around the town. We had a slow start to the day because we only had one activity booked that day and it was booked for 2 that afternoon. I took this an an opportunity to have a chance to walk around at my own pace, which was nice. I also found out that less people try to approach you to sell things or try to invite you into a restaurant if you’re walking with a certain amount of speed and purpose as well as if you’re on your own. I did stop though to have myself a crepe and iced chocolate for breakfast (healthy) and also found a magazine on my table that talked about the Philippines and El Nido and found an article or two talking about Swales and their potential uses. Does this count as part of my CPD for my training?
The activity we had planned had been one that Georgia had been talking about since before we came on the trip and it was the El Nido zip wire. She saw a video of it in tik tok somewhere and so it became a must do on our trip so that’s where we went on Sunday afternoon.
At this point in the trip we believed that we were experts with this trike business and asked to get ourselves over to the zip wire location. Little did we know that you can actually put 4 people on an El Nido trike so long as someone sits sideways on the bike itself. That person turned out to be me. I don’t think I’ve quite decided yet which location on a trike is the worst one but this one was definitely up there, along with sitting at the front and travelling backwards. The back of the bike had the same problem and I probably hit my head on the ceiling three times before we reached where we needed to and I was constantly conscious of where my feet were in regards to the inner workings of the bike.
When we arrived we thought that the worst part was over but we were dead wrong and the trike pulled up at the bottom of an insanely steep hill and he pointed us straight up it. The trike wouldn’t make it so we had to use our legs. I started the ascent up the hill and a guy on a motorbike of his own followed us. He stopped halfway up and waited for me to reach him and then shot off again further up the hill. At this point I wondered why this kid was following us and whether I was actually imagining if he was or not and then I turned around to see where the others were. Turns out, they could not walk up the hill as fast as I could and they’d watched helplessly as I’d stormed ahead.
Eventually, I reached the top and I found out that I wasn’t going crazy and that the kid on the bike was in fact following me but only to tell me the way to get to the zip wire. Part of me thought it would’ve actually been faster for him to go back and forth and to take each one of us up the hill on his bike one by one than to watch us struggle. But we did eventually all make it to the top, much more worn out and sweatier than when we’d started.
We sat and waited for our turn on the zip wire and got strapped in and thrown down it in pairs. Me and Ellie first, then Georgia and Lydia after. It was a relatively short zip line between two small islands but was still a lot of fun, however, none of us were heavy enough to reach the end and the people on the other end were ready to pull us in before we even stopped moving. I stopped quite far away from the end though and was hanging around in my harness over the sea for a considerable amount of time before I was pulled in. It was a lovely view though and so I didn’t mind swinging around too much.
We were only allowed to buy one way zip line tickets, which meant that after we’d done our ride we had to walk down the small hill on the other side and cross a sand bar back to the other island. There was nothing else to do on the island that had the ending of the zip line but walk back, unfortunately, the sand bar was covered in water that was about ankle deep, meaning shoes had to come off. I thought I’d been smart wearing my converse for the zip wire so I didn’t lose them or have to tie them to my bag but it felt less smart when I knew I would eventually have to put socks on feet that were either wet or sandy. It was a nice beach though and we stopped at a restaurant before we headed back towards the hostel to pick up Leyan for a chilled evening playing some cards.
