corinasays: Oscar 90 Meter Drop Abseiling

Rite of Passage

from Primary school boy to High school Student

It is all happening, my son decided he wanted to tempt the 90 meter drop after a successful descend on the 10 meter trial cliff in Lamington National Park last time ... I had to witness (rather horrified)

The view from the top

First, 10 meter drop training

This was quite a nice moment because we had already gone through this experience last time, and we knew what to expect. This site being less demanding, there are many young kids who come to try. When the instructor asked one 8 years old girl what she liked doing best in order to relax before the descent, she replied matter-of-factly: 'archery from the toilets'.

Another child, 12 years old, told us about his personal flock of sheep and his dad explained he had already come with his first two sons who are now 20 something, and that he planned to come again in a few years time when his last two would reach the same age. I don't know how many wives this translates into, but maybe it is only one lucky one!

Surprisingly, my son wanted to be first

This went pretty smoothly, then, we walked for an hour in order to reach the second location for the bigger drop.

We stopped and had lunch on the location. This was a delightful moment.

The equipment was being prepared carefully

The guide said, from now on, we don't use the word 'scary', but the word 'exciting'

And my son went as the second abseiler. The first one had to drop a line mid-way and report everything on a radio.

Needless saying: I was listening to every word spoken on the radio by the man down there who could see my son going down the rope. He stopped mid way, where there was a cave and said he saw a lizard. When I asked him later if he had been frightened, he said: 'of course, I am not stupid!' but he wants to do it again and thoroughly enjoyed it. This echoed the first guy, who said when he arrived:

'it went all too fast'