The best part about being an adult is getting to travel and try many different activities. Initially, however, I thought that I would have to travel to Manila or to other provinces, just so I could experience the activities I often saw on TV or reality shows. Thankfully, I discovered an Outdoor Activity Park within my city, the Batangas Lakelands.
Batangas Lakelands is located at Leviste Highway, Brgy. Malabanan, Balete, Batangas, Philippines. This outdoor park features a lot of activities like biking, rappelling, wall climbing, ziplining, archery, and airsoft. During special occasions, concerts are also hosted here and sometimes, they have offers including a kalesa, boat or a helicopter ride.
We went to Batangas Lakelands during my sister’s birthday. I surprised her by arranging the reservations and inviting her best friends for a day tour. (She actually cried a lot that day because she thought that we were just going to stay home and do nothing. Hehe.)
The day tour started with a Highlights Ride around the vicinity where we were first given a tour around the vicinity. The whole park covered around 20 hectares of land so hopping onto a ride just to be familiar with where the activities were was a good way to start. In our case, we didn’t actually finish the ride. Instead, we got down once we saw the wall climbing setup because we were eager to try.
Active Lifestyle ‘yern?
One of the first things I tried was the zipline. With the 5-min descent, it felt like flying and I enjoyed it so much that I ended up trying it again later in the day. (The best parts were whizzing through the air without so much effort and screaming whatever I wanted to at the top of my lungs.)
Immediately after, the group and I gave rappelling and wall climbing a go. Now, your girl isn’t a very active person. The most exercise I get in a day involves standing up and going to the restroom (haha) so of course, I had to tap into my inner power to finish these two activities. Surprisingly, I was better at rappelling down than climbing up. With rappelling, I had to use my arm strength to control the ropes as I descended. That was easier, at least for me, than using my lower body strength to support myself as I climbed up. I did reach a significant height in wall climbing so I still got to enjoy it.
Honestly, if there were more high energy activities in the park like bungee jumping or paragliding, I would’ve given those a try too.
A fun fact about me: I’m not scared of trying activities as long as there’s an expert there that makes sure my harnesses are in place and that the equipment works. My trust in experts is HUGE. If they tell me to jump off a cliff (with gear of course), I would do so.
Chill, Chill time
For the rest of the day, we wound down by doing less exhaustive activities. One of them was archery.
Because of Legolas and all the other fanciful archers in movies, I’ve always had the fantasy that I’d be a pretty good archer if I ever learned. I was pretty much slapped with reality when I got to try archery in real life (haha). First off, it takes way too much arm strength to hold the bow and arrow. Second, I couldn’t aim for the life of me. I was able to only hit the target once and I’m pretty sure I don’t even know what I did right that time. Nonetheless, it was an experience worth treasuring.
Another chill activity that we did was riding a bike. They have a leisure trail where you can bike for a certain amount of time. I hadn’t biked in ages so I was initially off to a rocky start, but other than the turns, I did pretty well for myself that day.
Other than that, the view was pretty great, honestly. We took lots of photos and also enjoyed being under the sun for a while.
If there’s one thing I would take away from that, it’s this: playing outdoors is the kind of child-like wonder we need as adults. My sister got to enjoy her milestone turning a year older in her twenties, while I got to experience new things in a nearby activity park and play my heart out.
Thank you for reading, internet friends! Have you also tried the outdoor activities that I was able to do? How’s your experience?
Pauline is a digital marketer and occasional speaker for Creative Writing. Outside work, she pursues passion projects such as writing essays, poems, and short stories, composing songs and filming videos.
As a storyteller on multiple platforms, Pauline has also attempted to create multimedia content through her YouTube channel (pollenpiggy) and a podcast she hosts (“When Pigs Fly”). You can find her at @pollenpiggycreates or at pollenpiggy@gmail.com.