Monico Family Travels

It wouldn’t be Monicofamilytravels if we didn’t find at least one completely bonkers and somewhat dangerous physical activity per country to scare the pants off me…… and the ropes course wasn’t it!

But let me start at the beginning of this crazy weekend when we traveled to the central northern part of Bali (through spectacular scenery on a mountain pass between 2 big volcanoes), and enjoyed an exhilarating afternoon at Bali Treetop Adventure Park.

The safety briefing was minimal at best, and Bella smartly identified her very floppy harness and gave it a good tug, while I had a somewhat frantic panic and sent James up the first ladder first.  The obstacles themselves seemed sturdy enough though so we relaxed and got climbing!  There were 12 routes to follow of varying height, strength and dexterity requirement, and general terrifyingness, with tonnes of zip lines built in for whooshing and taking a break from balancing and wobbling.

My one horror was the claustrophobia inducing tunnel.  Here is Emily who followed me through it sniggering at my whimpers!

Exhausted, even more raw handed, sporting one rope burn (Bellas) and one rather strange wire rash/blistery thing (mine), we popped back in the car, and drove past more spectacular scenery to our resting spot for the night.

We have ended up doing a lot of driving in Bali, often in terrible traffic conditions, but the girls churn through books on Audible, and with never-ending eye-watering scenery, its hard to get too frustrated!

We stayed in a resort, not usually our style, but having picked the right villa, this one had very worth-it views…..

…..and the most spectacular flowers….

…..and some of the lushest paddys yet!

Playing Sussed – a great new addition to our games bag from the lovely Lewis Banks family

Next morning we set off fairly bright eyed and bushy tailed to the Aling Aling waterfalls: 

We stumbled across this sign after a hike to the waterfall – I think it says it all!

We started with the relative ease of a 5M jump (still with a bit of screeching!)

Next up was the slide down this huge waterfall:

Bella in mid flow!

Next up was the relative safety of the smaller waterfall slide, but while less generally alarming, it was definitely bumpier on the nether regions!

We walked downstream a bit to the next set of falls…..

…..James took a peak over the edge…..

……and then jumped the 10M!!!

It must be a boy thing…. but I have to admit I was impressed by his lack of hesitation!

We were thankful to our lovely guide who responsibly shared with us that the last punter who jumped the 15M broke a small (but vital!) bone in his back, so we retired gracefully at the 10M, revisited the 5M pool for a few more family jumps, and then headed home.

Wonderful vibrant colours in this paddy

Famished after all the exertions, we stopped at a restaurant for early dinner on the way home and found a bonus playground in the garden.  Sweet!