Back when I hit my fiftieth trip around the Sun, I went to Australia, the Land Down Under. It was a good trip and I managed to survive, as Australia has more animals that an kill you than any other continent.
Near the end of my trip I was in Cairns. Needing something to do I ended up at the Cairns Zoom and Wildlife Dome (https://cairnszoom.com.au/). Much fun was had there. I got to walk around the outside rim of the building. I got to hold a koala bear (so soft!). Fun fact – there is a popular misconception that koalas spend all their time being stoned from eating eucalyptus leaves. I asked the koala’s caretaker about this and she said that their diet doesn’t leave them with very much energy so they sleep up to twenty (20) hours a day. I think I want to be a koala in my next life.
But most importantly I did the ropes course. It was my first time doing anything like that. You get hooked into a harness that connects to a cable hat runs through the whole course, the idea being that if you slip off one of the obstacles you don’t fall and break your neck. (Things like that are bad for business). They have swinging tires, and chairs, and pegs on walls and any number of things that you have to traverse.
Then you come to the first of three ziplines. You know how you’re attached to a cable to keep you from falling and breaking your neck? If you’ve never been on a zipline before (this was a totally new experience for me) and you’re standing on a small platform thirty feet in the air with nothing under you, and you’re expected to step off the platform ….
Yeah, that can be disconcerting. The lizard brain says ‘Are you crazy!?!?’ because its job is to keep you alive and tells you stepping out into air is a Bad Idea(tm). Ultimately though you have to take a ‘leap of faith’ and step off the platform (that or go all the way through the ropes course you just went through to get there). So I took the step.
If your curious, video evidence is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFkbOz3JJsU
It was all of ten seconds but it was fun. As I continued through the course there were two more ziplimes, each a little longer than the previous one. The last one went over the enclosure where Goliath, the World’s Largest Crocodile!, lived. I ziplined over a crocodile. Take that Indiana Jones! (Actually, I think Goliath was asleep at the time.)
So, why do I bring up this trip down memory lane? I’m going to go ziplining again this weekend. This will be outside over much longer distances and through forests. It all ends up on a tower where you get to do a seventy (70) foot freefall (attached to a cable, of course). I’m looking forward to it.
Got any fun plans for the upcoming weekend, my Hordeling? Leave a comment and tell me about it.
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