Now really having fun…

Recently on TRM’s (Tongariro River Motel) facebook we posted the message above. It is an interesting comparison which deserves more explanation.

Many sympathised with the the young girls imagining they were having fun?

Yesterday the TRM Daily Report mentioned the importance of having fun when trout fishing…

Other kids in our little town, who take the wild outdoors for granted, may have been more envious of the girls making fun with their own iphone or whatever device they were playing with?

Now we will try to illustrate more what we mean, as it has been brought to my attention that many teenagers living (aka surviving?) in the city environment, particularly Auckland, have no idea of what excitement is available beyond the big smoke – without a mobile phone in sight.

TRM is located in a small quiet touristy village on SH1 midway between Auckland and Wellington surrounded by lakes, rivers, and several national parks. To give you an impression, the nearest traffic lights are over 50km away at Taupo. On left is a Turangi traffic jam. OK? How boring?

But we think Turangi is fortunate in that the natural amenities are the playground – rather than the internet. We do not have to invent it or imagine it on a device like the girls above.

So it is just as natural for local kids to be doing more physical mountain and river activities which are not available in the cities.

TRM are also very lucky in having a young 20 year old – Hannah – who works as a part time housemaid but more particularly is completing her training to be a guide/companion/buddy to introduce the great outdoors to tourists (and their kids) visiting from cities where they are not as familiar with the natural wilderness surroundings.

Some city folk imagine Hannah may have missed out on many of the ‘cool’ cafe type attractions of the city but we want to show she has other skills offering far greater levels of enjoyment – which hopefully should be apparent from the following photos pinched at random from her fb page.

TRM suggest the measure of fun here is not in how many tweets you receive or finding Pokemon.

It is more personal achievement and satisfaction in stretching your physical boundaries together with the excitement of matching nature’s challenges.

The activities which Hannah has been involved scoping out for TRM tourists range from relatively tame trout fishing on the Tongariro – as one would expect at TRM – to more adventurous adventures from climbing Mt. Ruapehu last summer to shooting the rapids and plunging over a waterfall only last Friday – as shown on TRM’s facebook when the rest of us were more worried about keeping inside to keep warm.

So this is a very different environment which we believe is more stimulating and memorable than chasing Pokemons.

(We have to make a confession, as city kids may not appreciate it, but we have absolutely no idea what or where Pokemon is apart from reading that is the latest city craze to go viral?)

We will let you decide who is having the most “fun”…

Someone was so excited by Hannah’s canoe trip they repeated the waterfall plunge together on Friday on a blow-up mattress – photo on left.

Does it make you feel lethargic and tired and old?

We have warned her – SWMBO is next…