Challenge Tom – An Extreme Day On Rock
It was a day of high adventure to remember as Tom Dow (who is a dead set fearless legend!) from Challenge Tom took on the Pulse Climbing abseil and flying fox challenge to raise funds for The School of St.Jude
Tom has Leigh’s syndrome, a neurological disorder resulting in progressive loss of mental and movement abilities. Don’t feel sorry for Tom, he would rather you challenge him to do something fun and adventurous by donating money to great charities and causes. You can donate to the cause here.
Jason and the Pulse Climbing crew arrived early to the 18m high ocean side cliff to assess the conditions and prepare the ropes for the challenge. The whole set-up took a couple of hours to rig, test and have a practice run to ensure that everything was safe and ready to roll when Tom and his entourage arrived.
At about 10:30am Tom arrived and came over to have a look at what we had planned for him, you could see the excitement from the smile on his face as we talked him through where and how he would abseil and have a go at the flying fox. After getting the thumbs up from Tom that he was ready to go we all headed to the top of the cliff and prepared for Tom’s first abseil and within minutes Tom was over the edge of the 18m high cliff and descending to the bottom.
Once Tom was back on top of the cliff after the abseil it was time to hook him up to the 80m long flying fox! Tom was thumbs up the whole time letting us know that he was all set to go and wanted more, the adrenaline was certainly pumping after 2 goes whizzing down the flying fox above the ocean. It was an amazing site to see!
Once Tom was firmly back on solid ground he told us that it was AWESOME and gave the challenge an 80/10!
A huge thank you to everyone that made this challenge a success and to our mates who volunteered to help make sure everything went smoothly and that we had plenty of hands to help out.
