If you want to feel like a bad-ass bitch for approximately three minutes, and then a tiny, weak, little woman for two hours – paintball is for you!
Lock N Load paintball is one of New Zealand’s top paintball facility located next to Auckland Airport. For children or grown adults who just really want to shoot some stuff, this is the place to go.
They run all kinds of experiences for all ages, including birthday party packages, stag weekends and office outings. It’s also the only synthetic surface, all-weather paintball field in New Zealand meaning rain or shine, you can paintball to your heart’s content.
While writing this, I discovered they also offer low-impact sessions for children so kids can experience adrenaline rush and thrill of paintball as well – but with a hell of a lot less pain. I wish I had known this before booking the full-pain option!
On the day, Emma and I brought along our boyfriends and their friends so we could run our own group session, instead of joining in with random people. Emma and I were the only two girls in our group, but as we’re very strong, confident and tough feminists we had no qualms about this.
The course is designed and run by paintball professionals who are heaps of fun, while still being incredibly safety conscious. On arrival, they gave our group an extremely detailed safety briefing, and decked us out in the full protective gear including a chest and neck protector, gloves, helmet and a body suit.
We were then taken out to the themed scenario fields including a western town, graveyard, urban wasteland and a UFO crash site. The themes really got you in the zone, and I pretended I was in a real life Call of Duty warfare situation.
We were then split into teams of two. Emma and I demanded to be on the same team, for fear of what shooting each other would do to our friendship.
It’s actually harder to decipher who’s who in paintball than you would think – everyone is dressed identically. Because of this, I accidentally ended up shooting people who were on my own team. It was then that I realised being a real-life soldier must be tricky.
The guns we used fired the paintballs at up to 300 feet per second, which sounded cool and fast, so I was excited.
It was about three minutes into the first round when I realised that it’s not exciting. It’s awful and I hate paintball.
Around that time, I was shot six times in my upper thigh which hurt a surprising amount considering I am a curvy woman and my thighs are well padded.
The pain made me feel physically nauseous. I was suddenly overcome with rage for whoever shot me, rage for paintball in general and rage for our fitness column – the very reason I was in this hell hole.
Emma was in a similar boat. Every time she was shot, she would scream out “Owwwwww. This hurt?!??!” as if something was terribly wrong, and as if she didn’t understand the concept of paintball.
We honestly did try.
While the boys were loving it and shooting each other to near death, Emma and I hid in the bases in near tears. Sometimes we would attempt to run towards the other team, or fire a shot, but it was just too terrifying.
Emma’s boyfriend Loz went from quiet British man to lunatic game player, who refused to hold a gun and instead ran hell-for-leather to try and win each of the games. This worked well for him, apart from when both Emma and I mistook him again for the enemy team and shot at him repeatedly. Luckily, we are crap shots and not one bullet hit him.
My own boyfriend Will, who was on the opposing team, refused to shoot me because he knows how unreasonable I am, and that the silent drive home would not be worth it.
Verdict: All in all I enjoyed the adrenaline rush, but I would really prefer a game where I can be the only shooter and no one is allowed to shoot me.
Where you can do it: Lock N Load – Auckland, Paintball Corp – Wellington and McLeans Island Paintball – Christchurch.
We have two Grunt packs (worth $40 each) for Lock N Load paintball in Auckland to giveaway. To enter, visit our Facebook page.
*Sinead and Emma are the Anything But The Gym girls. Bored with standard workouts, they have begun the hunt for new and fun ways to get fit. Follow their weekly adventures here, and in New Zealand Good Health Choices. If you have a suggestion for something interesting for them to try, email [email protected] with Anything But The Gym in the subject line.
The Anything But The Gym Girls are now on Instagram! Follow them @theanythingbutthegymgirls to keep up with their fitness adventures.*
