In recent years there have been a lot of interesting and somewhat crazy inventions churned out of the avalanche of technology that continually washes over us. One in particular innovation that has held my curiosity is the Segway. If you’re not familiar with it, a Segway is kind of like an old time push scooters, those things we zoomed around on as kids, only on the Segway you stand up straight on it, and the wheels sit either side of your feet rather than behind and in front of you. Now the inventive trickery is the microprocessor driven devices that keep you upright. And did I mention that it’s motorised! They are brilliant (albeit a touch comedic to watch) machines that will have you zooming about like you’re in Back to the Future, or some other ‘Futuristic’ movie from the 80’s or 90’s.

The only problem is they’re incredibly expensive, so no matter how much I want to try them out, my wife simply won’t give me the green light to buy one.

But she didn’t say anything about renting one…

Segway Eco Tours, a ‘Xperiences’ offering, based out of the Novotel Twin Waters Resort, offers you a pretty unique opportunity for an adventure here on the Sunshine Coast. Their ‘Xpert’ tour guides lead you through some of our most beautiful and picturesque coastal Paperbark and Eucalyptus forest on the specially designed off road Segway tracks. I dragged my long-suffering wife along for one of the one-hour tours costing $65pp; and was slapped for highlighting the fact that there’s a 130kg weight limit – it was a joke! I cannot recommend this tour highly enough. It was an incredible experience. The beauty of the 14 odd hectares of forests and lagoons we ‘Segway’ our way through was truly indescribable to behold. My only regret was not taking the two-hour tour at $110pp, more time to further explore the incredible treasures within coastal bush land of the Sunshine Coast.

Before the wife agreed to tag along, I had to convince her of how safe the Segway was. I didn’t actually have an answer when she asked me how they stay upright, so I did a little reading. It turns out that these smart little machines, for those of you who were equally unaware of this, have been the able to mimic the way we humans walk. When we walk we’re constantly losing our balance by leaning forward or back, and then catching ourselves by placing our feet under ourselves to counter act this carry on. Much in the same way, the Segway catches its rider as they lean forward or backward by accelerating its wheels to keep the footboard under its rider thereby upright, as we zoom around the place.

The particular Segway used on the tours has been custom designed to suit off-road use with a bigger, more robust and rugged design catered to its intended environment, and not to mention more powerful and much more fun. It really is an incredible feeling riding a Segway over rocky terrain, up and down sand dunes and scaling dusty off-road tracks with ease. It truly is a unique and not to be missed experience.

For more information visit the ‘Xperiences Segway Eco’ Tours website.