Zipity do da! Part II

On Saturday afternoon I had plans with a group of friends, including Rob, Vince and Lisa, to visit Manitoba's first zip line park. Having never done anything like it before, I had no idea what to expect. The park is a good two hour drive from the city, located in the Pembina Valley area.

No doubt, many people think that the prairies are nothing but flat grasslands. While we don't have the topography of BC or even Alberta's foothills, Manitoba does have some picturesque areas of higher elevation.

Another thing I love about Manitoba is the hot summers. Saturday was a typical hot summer day, getting up to 29 degrees. While we waited to get our safety checks done after we geared up with harnesses and stylish helmets, we were already feeling the heat.

Hy-Wire Zipline Adventures park consists of five zip lines that circle you back to the start. The cables range in length from 500 to 1400 feet in length. The longest ride takes about 30 seconds. Our guide, Allen, would zip across ahead of us to the other side so he could help bring us in. Another guide stuck with us to hook us on to the cables. On my first ride I nearly took Vince out and I thought I'd miss the landing table altogether. I wish I had a picture of that.

After the first zip we had to hike. Man, did we have to hike. 150m straight up, in 10lbs of gear, in 29 degree heat.

"That's the worst hike you'll have to do," Allen assured us.

Some people took their zipping casually and just enjoyed the ride. Some inverted themselves for a different view. I decided to just enjoy the ride but try to capture some of the scenery with my camera. I got videos from the last two rides, but I don't think they really captured the full awesomeness of it all. I mean, it looks like my feet could nearly touch the ground!



More pictures of zipping here.

After our two hour adventure, we wanted to stop in at a good burger place for some food before heading back. We headed to The Burger Shak in Manitou. Being a sucker for ice cream and clever marketing, I had to order a Broken Heart parfait. I went up to the counter and said, "I'd like a Broken Heart, please." The girl replied, "a small or large?" I went for the big broken heart. Lisa was kind enough to help me out with it, because that's what best friends do. If I really wanted to push this metaphor I could add that I couldn't actually finish my broken heart because near the end it was just too sweet.

On the way home we played tourists and stopped to snap some pictures of the windmill farms.
We also jumped into a farmer's field of canola for a few fun shots.

For our last stop we swung by Miami. Didn't you know that Winnipeg is just a short drive away from Miami?