Adrenalin Forest

Recently, I found a voucher on GrabOne that looked interesting: a high ropes challenge course about 1/2 hour outside Wellington, in Porirua. It is called Adrenalin Forest, and it looked like exactly my kind of adventure, and something J could enjoy as well. I wasn't quite sure what we were getting into, but then our friends Christophe and Anaïs said that they'd done it and really enjoyed it, and that's when I started getting quite excited. I am happy to report that it was, in fact, quite fantastic.

We walked into the forest, and our eyes were immediately drawn up into the canopy, where we could see a variety of platforms and bridges and all manner of exciting things.

First, we learned about how to stay safe, using these amazing Clic-it carabiners, which I just learned were invented in France, which is cool. Anyway, they have a magnet system so they can only clip around the steel cord, and they lock so that only one can release at a time. You clip onto the first metal cord at the beginning of a course, and then move from one challenge to the next, around trees, etc. by unclipping one at a time to hook to the next cord, but there is no possible way for you to have both of them unhooked at the same time, until you're back on the ground at the bottom of the course. At the end, there is a tail that allows you to completely unhook. It is actually impressively idiot-proof, which is a necessity when you're allowing random people to be up to 31 metres off the ground. Anyway, the point is that they're very cool, and made us feel completely safe.

We don't have a lot of pictures of ourselves, as it was challenging to be taking pictures while maneuvering the course, and they're all of me, as J was the only one with a zip pocket in which to keep the camera safe. This is me getting through the last of an upside-down tunnel bridge.

And on a rope ladder. This is in stage one, which is only a few metres off the ground.

I would recommend clicking on some of these pictures to make them bigger, as there is a lot going on and it's hard to see all the levels of ropes.

There were all different kinds of challenges, including logs that spun when you stepped on them, rings to balance in, a snowboard that zipped down the rope when you stepped on it, ziplines, tightropes, log ladders, loops of rope that blew in the wind, etc. In addition to being up high, it was very physically challenging.

This is looking down at stages one and two from up on four. They go up to six.

This was by far the hardest challenge, You have to move from log to log, balancing on those little pegs at the bottom. The picture does not do justice to how far apart the logs are - a long way! 

J and I both made it across, but ended up with extremely tired arms. The fatigue had been building, but that was the limit. I noticed that there were two ziplines and then the end of stage four, and concluded that those logs were put there to make sure you recognized if you were too tired to continue to level five, and J agreed. Then, when we got to the bottom and talked to an employee, he explained (without us even asking) that that is exactly why it is there! I felt triumphant to have figured that out, and also completely convinced that it had done its job, as my arms were quite clear about their fatigue.

This is the view looking down from the platform after the convincing logs.

I managed to get the camera across the second-to-last zipline and take a picture looking back, but you can barely tell that that's J standing on the platform, about to zip.

And here he is coming down the last zipline of stage four, but again it's hard to tell it's him. I promise that it is! The ziplines were exhilarating, and I especially liked some where you flew right over the top of some shorter (but still plenty tall) trees.

We would very much like to do stages five and six, as they are even higher, which would be lots of fun. We've decided to keep an eye out for another GrabOne deal, and then go back and start straight into five with fresh muscles and see how we do. I'm excited already!

You can read more about Adrenalin Forest here if you'd like.