Zorbing at Southdown Adventure

Like feeling completely out of control? Like being flung around to the point where you don’t know which way is up? If you answered "yes", then zorbing is for you.

Invented in New Zealand, zorbing has been steadily growing in popularity in the UK for about 15 years and is looks as if it’s here to stay.

Southdown Adventure in Devon were kind enough to allow us to review zorbing with them. They are an extremely friendly, family run company where zorbing is just one of the many activities they offer. The most popular activities are quad biking and shooting.

Just five minutes down the road from Southdown Adventure is a paintballing centre so, if you’re planning an activity weekend, this is certainly a fantastic option for groups of all ages and abilities.

We arrived at Southdown to see the two huge zorb balls waiting for us at the top of the hill and, after filling in a form, we were ready to enter the zorb which was a two-man, harnessed zorb. The weight limit for this type was 16 stone per person.

After climbing aboard (lightest person first), we were secured into our harnesses and the zorb was pushed. We rolled at a nice, gentle pace for about three seconds before picking up speed very rapidly.

We were very aware of the speed, feeling the G-Force and having flashing glimpses of green, then blue as we were turning quickly to face the grass and the sky. The sensation of rolling was then joined by a bounce.

As the zorb compressed (there's a sphere inside a sphere with air in between), we picked up more speed and, at that point, we had to keep our heads down.

It felt as if we had been rolling/bouncing for ten minutes when we came to a stop.We had actually only ridden in the zorb for about half a minute but that's all you need - our heads and stomach continued to roll even after we'd gotten out (with assistance from the fantasic staff)!

Zorbing is a nice, passive thrill for pretty much everyone although, if you suffer from motion sickness, it probably isn’t the best activity for you.

Thanks to Southdown Adventure for the experience.