Drizzle to warm sun

The six of us returned to Tree Adventures this morning to tackle the ropes course.

We chose to do courses 5-8...the middle ground between "barely off the ground" and "OMG!"

The staff there are just lovely--helpful, friendly, encouraging.

As with our previous experiences with ropes courses, you feel terrified of the height for the first one or two obstacles. And then the height becomes irrelevant, and it's all about the physical challenge of each element.

The very first obstacle was an almost-vertical 20 foot wall climb. The last few toe holds were really difficult and I felt quite stuck for a while. KC, on the other hand, bounded up that and all the rest of the course as if she was born in the trees.

There were some elements that involved stepping from plank to plank or log to log that were at the very limits of my stride. As the shortest person in our family, I felt quite handicapped at times! On the other hand, DC had times when his challenge centered on where to put his head relative to the safety line--crouched below or off to one side above?

It took about 2.5 hours to complete the 4 courses. There's then the option to add on courses 9 and 10, but it was 2pm and we were hungry, so decided to go find lunch somewhere and maybe return afterwards (knowing, I think, that we probably wouldn't.)

We stopped at a nice looking cafe in Helensville. The chalkboard proclaimed "All Day Breakfast" with the caveat "until 2pm". Turns out, everything is "until 2pm". They seemed willing to extend their deadline, but the reality was that most food had run out anyway. So DC ended up the only person who ate anything lunch-like.

The estuary

A view of the back of our rental house

All of the day to this point had been cool, cloudy, and often drizzly. Pretty perfect for the physical exertion of ropes courses. By the time we returned to Orewa, the sun was out. DC and I walked the short distance to the beach, then the long distance all the way down the beach. Such a beautiful place--shallow waters, a wide, easy-to-walk beach, and just the right number of people...felt quiet, but enough entertainment from people-watching to keep things interesting.

We eventually walked back via the grocery store. DC has been attempting to go grain-free, but the pies have been too much of a temptation. Having given in to that, he's like a relapsed addict, and we walked back with bags bulging with cakes, puddings, and pies!