Sue and I went to Treetop Adventure Park today. Here is the website.
It’s an obstacle course of sorts, set high in gum trees in the bush. It starts with a safety presentation in which we are taught about our caribiners and our wheel-thing (for the flying foxes) and in general how not to die. We then finished a short practice course before trying the main courses.
Think of it as a bit of a Ninja Warrior stage three but up in the treetops. The four courses are colour-coded and start with green and blue. When we started each of these courses things were a bit hairy (it takes a while to fully trust in the equipment), but after an hour or so it became second nature. There is an enormous variety of different ways to cross from tree to tree, including walking on tightropes, wobbly bridges, hanging from poles or ropes, or just the ever-fun flying fox (that’s an Australian term by the way, click on it if you don’t know what it means).
It’s very hard work. Lots of upper-arm strength and balance is required, and it is probably one of the best workouts I have had in a long while. Also, don’t even consider this if you have a fear of heights!
This next shot shows the start of one of the flying foxes that goes over the carpark. It was, hrm… 30+ feet above the ground?
It took us over three hours to finish to the end of the red course. By this time we were dog-tired, and debated long and hard about starting the black course. One of the attendants told us only about 25% of people who start choose to try the black course, and only 30% of those that start it finish it (the others need ‘rescuing’, since there is no easy way down). I peeped at some of the obstacles, and they included long monkey-bar crossings, very long rope bridges with 2-3 meters between steps (so you’d have to hang from the caribiners between steps) and even something that looked not dissimilar to the globe hang from Ninja Warrior course 3! To be honest, some of the black course challenges seemed to push the limits of possibility!
We piked out and didn’t try the black course. I think we both would have had a good chance at completing it if we had been rested, but given we were both so exhausted I’m guessing success was unlikely 🙂
I want to stress how hard work this all was. It was immensely entertaining, especially because there was quite a rush associated with succeeding. But it’s many hours since I ended, and I still feel like I just had a fight with The Devil and lost badly. Every muscle I have aches and it’s all I can do to stay awake!
I’d do it again though, in a heartbeat. And next time I’d know what to expect and possibly be more prepared for the black course.
Here’s a humorous shot, sure to make some of the American readers chuckle:
And here’s what tonights entertainment boiled down to:
Lastly, today was my brother’s birthday. Despite numerous attempts, we were unsuccessful in reaching you on the phone. So I shall take this chance to wish you a very happy 40th birthday 🙂