Outdoor Adventure Hub – Six Months of Progress
It’s hard to believe it’s already been six months since we started seriously developing the Y Outdoor Adventure Hub at Mitre 10 Park, and it’s fantastic to see what started as an idea now becoming a busy and exciting outdoor programme for Hawke’s Bay tamariki and rangatahi.
Our vision has always been pretty simple – to create more affordable, local opportunities for young people to get outdoors, try something new, challenge themselves and have some fun. Over the past few months, we’ve really started to see that vision come to life.
The July school holidays were a big milestone for us as we welcomed our first external paying groups to the Hub. After months of testing and developing activities with our own Y-Kids and Holiday Programme tamariki, it was awesome to see all that practice pay off. Our team delivered kayaking, raft building, archery, orienteering and team-building activities, and the response has been really encouraging. One of our first groups has already rebooked, and we now have a growing number of schools and community groups heading our way through Term 3 and into Term 4.
We also had a fantastic day supporting Hillary Outdoors with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Get2Go Adventure Race. The event brought together 15 teams from nine local high schools for a full day of adventure challenges, with the Y team delivering the water activities. Seeing so many local rangatahi enjoying the Hub was a great reminder of exactly why we started this project.
There’s also been plenty happening behind the scenes. Thanks to support from the Lion Foundation, our climbing wall is being fully reclad and given some much-needed maintenance, ready for its next chapter. We’re continuing to work through the Adventure Activities Certification process, including staff training, safety systems and operating procedures, and we’re excited about getting the wall up and running.
We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have some amazing organisations get behind the project. Firstlight Foundation, Sport Hawke’s Bay, Hillary Outdoors, Burnsco, Aspiring, Gun City, Tūpiki Trust and the New Zealand Great War Memorial Soldiers Trust have all contributed to helping us develop the equipment, safety systems and resources we need.
We’ve also had fantastic support from our wider Y whānau. The teams at Y Central and Y North have generously shared their outdoor education experience and expertise with us, helping our team learn from established Y outdoor centres around New Zealand.
As we head towards spring and summer, the calendar is starting to fill up and we’re excited about what’s ahead. We’re continuing to develop the activities we already offer while looking at what we might be able to add next.
There is still plenty more we want to achieve, but when we look back at where we were six months ago, we’re incredibly proud of how far the Outdoor Adventure Hub has come.
Most importantly, a huge thank you to everyone who has backed the idea, provided funding or equipment, shared their expertise or simply helped us along the way. Together, we’re creating something pretty special for Hawke’s Bay young people – and we can’t wait to see what summer brings.
