Tramping in Cable Bay Adventure Park: a great adventure for 9 adults and 4 kids
Leader: Rod Lewis
Since our arrival in Nelson, seven months ago, we knew that one day, we would go to Cable Bay Adventure Park. I am not exactly sure, though, that tramping in an adventure park offering Quad Bike tours and Skywire experience was what our two eleven-year old boys Mathis and Philéas had in mind… However, here we were, on Sunday 8 March at 9.30am, in the Cable Bay Adventure Park car park, ready to walk under the leadership of Rod and Carol.
After passing through the Paintball field (no, we did not do the activity: tramping is a serious thing and we could not get distracted!), we began to climb in the native forest a pretty steep bike track (well, we still were tramping!) towards Blue Hill (609m). Tom (6 years old) was very enthusiastic and offered to lead, which Rod accepted with pleasure. Tom’s brother, Jaimes (7 years old), was in the meantime entertaining the other participants with some serious conversations. As for Mathis and Philéas, they were racing with the friendly fantails that were following our tracks.
When we finally joined the gravel road that we would take on the way down, we had a hard choice to make: going right to reach the top of Blue Hill with an extra 10-minute effort, or turning left to get as quick as possible to the picnic place? Only five adults had the courage to head for the top: no view there… no reason to go for the others, who hurried to the food, the nice view towards Cable Bay… and the best cookies ever (thank you Tom for this treat!).
The walk down was very gentle, with everybody very busy speaking. A small detour allowed us to see the top of the Skyline and to observe four people riding down and back. Yep, it was quick! But walking was fine, and much cheaper… Ice creams and drinks were our reward at the car park: we definitely deserved them by our dedication to the tramping activity. Thank you Rod and Carol for this great adventure day!
Trip Participants were: Rod (leader)and Carole-ann Lewis, Thu Ng, Ian Morris, Sybille (scribe) and Scott Hausser, Mathis & Philéas Billquist (11yr), Leah and Kevin, Jaimes (7yr) & Tom (6yr) Parker and Allan.
