Live adventurous
Yesterday (being Labour Day in New Zealand) meant that Ludus was closed.
Kerry from School of Hard Knox had offered an open session for everyone who had signed up for the current block of boot camp regardless of whether or not you usually attended on a Monday, which I thought was uber cool! However as James’ work schedule doesn’t allow him to attend the regular weekly boot camps I decided that I’d think of something that he and I (and perhaps a kidlet or two) could do together.
The weather was supposed to be clear so I asked him if he’d want to go out to Bethells and “do the dunes” – James has run them before and although I went with him (and the rest of the Ludus crew) that day, I didn’t run as I had an injury that prevented me from climbing back up, so that day I stayed at the top and if I remember correctly did a workout of crawls and burpees instead.
Anyhoo I digress – James said yes and we talked Elias into coming but Isabelle wasn’t sold especially when she realised that we were going all the way to the beach just to run up and down a hill. I’m not sure why that didn’t sound enthralling to a seven year old … 😉
Depending on how distracted by the environment your six year old is, it takes about 10-15 minutes to walk from the Bethells Beach car park to the dunes themselves and a little more you want to head over to Lake Wainamu. The Waiti Stream which sits at the bottom of the dunes is shallow and you’ll find it safe for the kids to swim and paddle. You can actually follow the Waiti Stream all the way to the dunes and continue to follow it to the lake but we cut across some private land (tut tut) to reach our destination.
We bought Elias’ boogie board with us so I would run down, film Elias flying down on his board and we would both clamber back up again, (sans board) at which point James would run down and fetch the board (usually beating both Elias and I to the top again) <3
I had worn my weight vest as it’s become somewhat of an accessory of choice during the Ludus Transformation Challenge and I was able to crawl back up the dune whilst wearing it but I it wasn’t until I tried a couple of sets without the vest that I could walk up without using my hands but even then I only managed to get about 3/4 of the way up before collapsing in a heap. 😉
I lost track of how many times we ran down and clambered back up but I can tell you we laughed a lot (mostly at James trying to slide unsuccessfully down the hill). It was so cool that Elias and I did something for the very first time together. I initially doubted both of our abilities to get up the dune as it looked so high! BUT watching my baby take one step at a time inching his way back to the top made my heart burst with pride and there was no way I’d let him see me give in.
Although I did worry about how long Elias would last before getting bored, he was beyond awesome and even showed up a group of teenage boys who were attempting to show off their dune boarding skills for their girlfriends but chickened out at the last minute, Elias had just clambered up to the top, sat on his board and whizzed off the edge. One of the girls said “look, he’s showing you how it’s done”.
I’m not so sure Isabelle would have been as happy to be out as long as Elias was but she’s adamant that she’s coming next time apparently anything Elias can do, she can do better .. at least we can be sure we have instilled in her that girls can do anything – what’s a bit of healthy competition between siblings if it get’s her out of the house and climbing mountains.
Till next time
