The Young and the Restless | Adventure in the trees costs mum bribery fees

Luckily for those of us who get bitten by the tree-surfing bug, there’s an abundance of ziplining adventures and tree-climbing venues to be found across the country these days.

One of our favourite places to engage in this monkey business is at Treetops Adventure in the Dandenong Ranges (right next to Puffing Billy at Belgrave).

This place is not a case of been-there-done-that after a single visit.

With eight treetops courses, two junior courses, 23 ziplines and more than a hundred aerial obstacles across eight hectares of forest, there is no way anyone could get through all of it in their standard two-and-a-half-hour visit.

The company boasts that after safety, guests’ adrenaline is its number-one priority, and I can tell you from our last experience there, you might get an overdose of adrenaline without even truly inviting it, depending on which course you choose.

We were feeling brave when we checked in and consequently chose a course that concluded only by jumping off a platform some 15 to 20 metres above the ground in order to return to terra firma.

There was no turning back and no other way off the course other than to sail down.

We were down with that.

At that point in time, anyway.

After our safety briefing, we headed out to the ‘Home Tree’, a gigantic 150-year-old Algerian oak, where all high ropes courses begin.

We started off a little hesitant and unco-ordinated as we mounted the first of our obstacles trying to find our feet (or wings?) and confused trying to remember the order of shackling and unshackling our equipment to move between them.

Alas, we loosened up as we made our way through the highest of the levels, climbing rope walls, balancing across swing bridges, landing zipline flights as elegantly as we could and crawling through floating tunnels.

Although we’d been a little sceptical about visiting a treetops course in the Dandenongs during winter when it’s even colder high up among the dew-covered greenery than it is on the ground, and where days aren’t even long enough for anything to dry, they turned out to be perfect conditions.

Fleece-lined trackies (or fleece-lined winter shorts) added extra protection around that sensitive area a harness can sometimes make quite uncomfortable, if you know what I mean.

We also warmed up quickly climbing and stayed warm throughout the whole experience because there is so much physical exertion in holding and moving your own body weight.

Pair that with the mental energy expended for focus (as well as the healthy fear and nerves) and it’s a great way to tire small humans (and big ones) out and make for a peaceful drive home.

After enough time burning our muscles out and conquering our fears, we came upon that last obstacle: the platform from which we had to leap with faith.

First in line was my notoriously brave middle child, whose fearlessness seemed to have given way to fear in that moment.

So I began the gentle parental coaxing, trying to instil the confidence, convincing him how safe it was and how he’d overcome much bigger and scarier things before.

It didn’t work.

So then I began the parental bribery: “How about if you jump now, not only will we get Nando’s for lunch, but we’ll get the biggest, chocolatey and sugary dessert we can find?”

It didn’t work.

So then came the parental monetary incentives: “I’ll give you five bucks? Ten?” (Wasn’t going to offer much more, because whatever I pledged I knew I was going to have to triple it once they’d all made the same jump.)

It didn’t work.

Quite the line-up was growing behind us, who were all shouting what they thought were words of encouragement to my kids, but all it really did was highlight just how big an audience they now had.

I was growing quite nervous myself about the prospect of there being no other way out of the situation other than having to turn back, but I could not see how that was logistically possible.

My eldest eventually volunteered to jump first, with my youngest quickly following suit to “dibs” second place, and we subsequently spent another few minutes shackling and unshackling our climbing gear to change our human order on the cables.

Once child one and three had descended incident-free, I had thought number two would jump without further hesitation.

I was wrong.

A mum behind me suggested I go and she would convince my son to follow.

Could go pear-shaped. What if I did and he still didn’t want to join us all on the ground? Then what? How could I get back to him? What if he started having a full-blown panic attack up there?

But I took the chance, resolving that at least from the ground I’d be able to find him help to get him down some other way if need be.

Of course my own super unco-ordinated landing, where I missed the mat and ended up flat on my back in the undergrowth (yet still laughing my noggin off about it), probably didn’t entice him to depart his perch.

Nevertheless, he jumped.

Whether it was something the mum behind us said to him (for all I know she might have simply threatened to throw my kid off if he didn’t move — I was out of earshot by then), or whether he feared being left behind more than the jump itself, we got there in the end.

Not only did we get Nando’s and the biggest, chocolatey, sugary desserts we could find, my purse was also a fiver lighter for each of them by the end of the day.

And here I was thinking the treetops adventure was the treat itself.

We will return. But this time we will choose a course that concludes with a zipline flight or a ladder climb right back down to earth.