rimutaka-incline-david-heap

At the Wel­ling­tonista, we mostly like to try the exper­i­ences we talk about before we talk about them. How­ever, it’s that time of year when every timeline com­presses in on itself, and maybe all you really want to do is curl up in a ball and wait until 2016 ends. So we did­n’t quite get around to per­son­ally try­ing one of the activ­it­ies in Every­one’s Adven­ture, but we’re gonna talk about it any­way because the concept is pretty cool.

Every­one’s Adven­ture is a cam­paign to bring do-able out­door adven­ture for free to as many Wel­ling­to­ni­ans as pos­sible. To quote them:

The three par­ti­cip­at­ing busi­nesses are The Boat­shed Days Bay, The Bike Shed Pen­car­row, and Cycle Rimu­taka. They hire out kayaks, stan­dup paddle­boards and bikes, and sell drinks and snacks. 

We’ve cal­cu­lated how much it’ll cost to oper­ate those busi­nesses safely and pay staff this sum­mer based on last year’s usage: it’s $300k. Every dol­lar spent on gear hire, or snacks and drinks at the busi­nesses goes towards that $300k total. Vouch­ers pur­chased as gifts are included in the tally. 

Once $300k is reached, gear hire at all three busi­nesses is free, for any­one to use, for the rest of sum­mer, until East­er 2017. 

There’s more on their blog about why they’re doing this and how it works.

The pay­off here is that free is a lot more afford­able for people who might not oth­er­wise get a chance to try these exper­i­ences. And hav­ing done a few bike trips on the rail trail or out to the light­house with my fam­ily, I can attest to them being rel­at­ively easy and lots of fun.

So maybe you’ve thought about cyc­ling the Rimu­taka Rail Trail, rid­ing out to Pen­car­row from East­bourne, or try­ing a spot of kayak­ing on the har­bour… or maybe you know someone who would like to try it with you. At the Every­one’s Adven­ture web­site you can buy vouch­ers for these busi­nesses which will go towards the $300k tar­get:

Buy­ing a vouch­er entitles you to make a book­ing for that par­tic­u­lar product. If we’ve hit our goals and that product becomes free, you can still book and reserve your spot (every­one else will be on a first come first served basis).

Once you’ve bought your vouch­er, and booked, all you have to do it get there. If you wanted to just try some kayak­ing then the East By West ferry is your best bet, drop­ping you right at Day’s Bay by The Boat­shed; while The Bike Shed is on the south side of East­bourne, so not quite walk­able unless you’re keen (4.3km from the ferry). They’ve got all the gear, includ­ing hel­mets (for the bikes) and life­jack­ets (for the kayaks).

So, there you go: some vouch­ers from Every­one’s Adven­ture might just save you one or two agon­ising Christ­mas present dif­fi­culties while at the same time help­ing oth­ers exper­i­ence some­thing new. Get to it!