Rainforest Family Program – April 2017 – Northern Rivers, NSW
Welcome to the Blog for our April Rainforest Family Program which is starting this Sunday 9 April. Follow our 10 families as they undertake a challenging and inspiring journey alongside our abundant Northern Rivers, through national parks and heritage listed Rainforest areas. Here you will find updates from the Program including a written account of each day’s events as well as photos.
Leading this expedition are two of our most amazing Outward Bound Instructors, Helene and John.
Helene absolutely loves to paddle! Whether it’s on creeks, rapids, river, dams, or oceans, she is always seen on the water. Her favourite food is definitely cheese, and could eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner if she could. Helene really wants to see a platypus and koala in the wild as they have eluded her for too long!
John loves mountains and long walks on the beach. Every spare day John has is spent adventuring in one form or another, hiking down canyons, climbing huge escarpments or doing ultra long hikes into the most remote areas around the world. To sustain this, John eats about as much as four regular humans and loves a strong coffee on the mountaintop.
Day 1, Sunday 9 April.
10 amazing families turned up at Base Camp, some flying in and some self driving this Easter School Holidays. A great mixture of Fathers. Mothers, Sons and Daughters all ready to jump into their Rainforest Experience. A morning tea was followed by a ‘packing the back-pack’ session – making sure every-one had just the right amount of supplies – clothes and equipment to get them through their expedition journey over the next five days. Any unecessary clothing and technology was left safely left behind.
After the first lunch the Family Group had a good opportunity to get to know each other with a group expectations chat. Everyone has different aims and goals and together our Outward Bound instructors work with the group to ensure that everyone meets their own aims and goals while on expedition.
Finally, it was a glorious day in the Northern Rivers – the sun at long last is back. During the afternoon our Families were straight into their swimmers for a canoe across Clarrie Hall dam then onto setting up camp, lighting the fire and spending the first night under an almost full moon!
Day 2, Monday 10 April 2017
Outward Bound is about expeditions, all of our participants are on a journey. A beautiful start to the day – the weather is really turning it on in the Northern Rivers this week – our campers are greeted by fresh air and sunshine! Tents are packed up and everyone is on their way. Today’s journey comprised of travelling first by canoe and then by mountain bike to Doon Doon Platform. Amazing to see everyone working together as a team and enjoying their time together as a family and extended group.
Day 3, Tuesday 11 April, 2017
This is the day where most of family participants are tested – while beautiful the historical Nightcap Trail has some hills to overcome. Our families took some time out from the larger group and took part in a buddy walk with just the parent/child for 4km. This is a great exercise in finding out all sorts of things that may get missed in our everyday busy lives. It’s about spending time together asking questions – it’s a revealing activity which leads to thoughtful discussion between families about their past, present and future goals as a family.
Day 4, Wednesday 12 April, 2017
The last day of hiking for our Families saw the Familes hike the mighty Minyon Falls. From the recent flood event, the largest in living history – the Falls are in full flow.
The afternoon was spent setting up for our duo camping experience where our families had another chance to spend that really important one-on-one time together before heading back to the real world.
