What is a slackline? It's basically a strap / rope (I believe it's officially called webbing) that you set up between two trees (or anything else that won't move!). At the first tree you loop the strap round the tree then at the second you ratchet it tight and basically create a tightrope. Very good fun for adventurous kids and HAS to be done outdoors.
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To give you a better idea of what I mean this is similar to the Slackline
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We visited a local forest and that's where we did our slacklining. Our slackline is 16 metres long, so you can get a really great long line to walk on and lots of choice as to which trees you can put it between. I believe you can also get tree protectors, but with only young children using ours I don't think the trees even had a scratch on them!
We visited a local forest and that's where we did our slacklining. Our slackline is 16 metres long, so you can get a really great long line to walk on and lots of choice as to which trees you can put it between. I believe you can also get tree protectors, but with only young children using ours I don't think the trees even had a scratch on them!
So how do we use our slackline? Mostly like a tightrope, which the boys love, Champ in particular believes he is destined to join the circus as a strongman, apparently by age ten he wants to start practicing throwing daggers, but I digress!
Next up we created a 'zip line' using a stick and Hubby wizzing the boys along, although we reckon if you put one end of the line a lot higher than the other end you could have a go at creating a very basic zip line, for kids at least.
We did also catapult a few pine cones, but I didn't get any pics as I was a bit busy trying to stop this little man running after either dogs or getting in the line of fire of the catapulting pine cones!
It was great fun, feels incredibly adventurous (yes I have had a go!) and clearly was so much fun we had several families come up and ask if their kids could join in, quite the seal of approval.
And when the slacklining was done, there's always time for some stick sword fighting!
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Love the look of this, a great challenge for all kids
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous idea to set up for the kids to have a go at in the local forest, I've seen a couple of people doing this before but didn't really know what it was. I'm sure my lot would love to have a go at slacklining, I'm surprised they haven't already tried tying up some of Nick's ratchet straps (I'm sure they'll have heard of it, they're always in on the next big outdoor thing). It's great that there were other families joining in, a great way for your boys to make new friends, I bet everyone had a blast joining in. No trip to the woods is complete for little boys without a stick sword fight, it looks like that's a real battle going on! Thanks for linking up with me on Country Kids.
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