Day 3 in Australia - Flying through Vision Valley

Today was our FULL-ON day in Vision Valley. Vision Valley is about an hour or a little less northwest of Sydney. We were here by 8:30 a.m. First I'll apologize for not having many photos from this day. My camera spent most of the day in its case.

The Full-On team is from New Zealand. They were a high energy group of young people - probably most in their early to mid twenties. They're trained to push you past your "comfort zone" and to help you learn to trust others within a group situation.
We started the day with an orientation...a talk/discusssion about fears...and some examples of the activities we would do. From there, we divided into 3 groups and headed outside for some warm up activities. The real treat was the three main activities of the day.... The Vertical Challenge, The Leap of Faith, and the Flying Fox Zip Line (thus the title of this post!).The Vertical Challenge was a sort of ladder that was more like a swing. It had 5 logs increasing in their distance apart - and was suspended from 2 cables. Two people went at a time - working as a team - to climb up the 'ladder'. On the ground, six students were manning the ropes - 3 to a side. If you were 'climbing', you had to trust that the people controlling the ropes were truly doing that and that if you slipped on the logs - which about everyone did - you wouldn't fall to the ground. It was wild.... Oh by the way, the climbers wore harnesses which were attached to the ropes.



The Leap of Faith was truly just that! Faith that the person holding the rope wouldn't let you fall. With your harness on, you climbed about 30 feet (seemed like 100 feet) up a tree, stood on a platform, and then jumped off. Again, this was wild! Some had a little more trouble than others in the 'trust' department!

The Zip Line was probably the favorite. (Click the link on 'Zip Line' to see a photo of the zip line.) Again we were in harness and helmet. Each person would climb up and walk in a BOAT that was perched upon a cliff. Someone would attach your harness to the tethers...then you would jump out and FLY across this zip line - 400 feet about the ground. The Zip Line was probably at least 200-250 yards long.

The Full-On team debriefed...talking about choices you make in life, and about goals and dreams. It was pretty emotional for some. I felt it was very well done - and so relevant to this age.

Dinner was served and we came to this lodge - Tim, our delegation manager, calls it 'being at summer camp in the winter.' This IS a camp....and it IS winter here! There is another People to People delegation here - also high school. Half of them are from Denver and the other half are from Los Angeles. Some new friendships/acquaintances were made!

Just so you know, in both places we've stayed - there is ONE PHONE that the students can use to call out. Both places have had other P2P delegations...so getting to the phone is crazy. If you haven't heard from your child - this MIGHT be why - or they might just be having way too much fun. Always consider - NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS!

Tomorrow morning we're off to Canberra. We'll be there tomorrow night and Friday. Friday we'll head back to Sydney and fly out to Darwin!

G'day, Mates!
Judy