Friday, April 3, 2009

Monkey Boy

Last weekend, we took Jack and a few of his friends to Forest Adventure. Forest Adventure is a "ropes course" in Bedok Reservoir Park. If you've never seen one of these before, it's basically a series of rope bridges, catwalks and other obstacles installed up high in the trees. They are mainly used by teachers as team building tools or as a way to build self confidence. If you've got a fear of heights, it's a heck of a challenge. Walking across a 2x4 20 feet in the air can be a difficult task. Apparently, someone forgot to tell Jack it was supposed to be hard.

After strapping into his harness and getting clipped into the safety wire system that goes through the whole children's course, Jack began making his way through the obstacles. Most of the kids took a while to get used to being 20' in the air. On the first bridge that you need to walk across, the kids tended to hold onto the safety wire above their head while walking on the 2x6 boards that made up the "floor". When Jack's turn comes, he barely took his hands out of his pockets, let alone try to grab the safety wire. He wandered across the bridge like he was on his way to 7-11 for a Slurpee.

look ma, no hands

I was pretty impressed. Jack blasted through the course like he was part monkey. Absolutely no fear whatsoever. Here's another picture just so you can put the height of the course into perspective.


Jack and his friends all had a great time. They did their best to encourage each other and cheer each other on. Every once in a while, one of them would get their safety rope stuck and they would all help the others pull it through the sticky spot. Here's a few more pictures.

this was called "the trapeze", the hardest obstacle there


smile for the camera sweetheart


The course ended with everyone's favorite, the "zip line" Just jump off do the platform 20' in the air and slide to the bottom.


They've got an adult course as well. It's 3 times as high and twice as long. Melissa and I want to give it a try, but we're thinking we'll wait until next Christmas when my brother is visiting. Should be fun.

3 comments:

Melissa said...

What?! We are not waiting til Christmas to do the adult course. We are going to try and go in 3 weeks.

Newby said...

That looks like so much fun!!! What a neat place to visit!

I'm guessing Jack must have channeled his inner-Indiana Jones!

Liza said...

Jack has no fear, huh? Wow. Who knows, maybe he'll end up being one of those EMTs that rescues people from the tops of mountains in the Alps. I am TOTALLY down for the zipline next winter.