What’s On checks out Adventure Zone by Adventure HQ at The Galleria Mall, an indoor high ropes obstacle course. Get prices and info on the climbing walls at Adventure HQ.

Can’t go outside and climb trees? “Let the trees come to you”, says Ben Barker, project manager at the new Adventure Zone.

Dubai’s adventure giant, Adventure HQ, has opened up its third branch in the city at The Galleria, a new mall on Al Wasl Road. This time, they’ve ditched the clothing and outdoor gear in favour of a new concept: an expansive high and low ropes obstacle course and 12 unique climbing walls.

High and low ropes course
Considering the space, the team has managed to pack an incredible amount of activities in one area and it’s hard not to walk in and feel like a kid again. There are beanbags and brightly coloured climbing walls, but it’s the high and low ropes – that offer daredevils the opportunity to monkey around in the air while taking on aerial obstacles – that creates the biggest impression. While it’s not as high as the original high ropes course in the Time Square Centre branch, this one is slightly more demanding, and a little more fun too. You’ll have to balance on a sliding skateboard, zip line from one to side to another, and scramble – a la Spiderman – along a cargo net. Think that sounds too easy? Then try it blindfolded.

For little ones, this place is like Disneyland and a welcome alternative to run of the mill soft play centres; kids as young as three years old can give the low ropes course a whirl. But if you’re a big kid, like us, you’ll have just as much fun barking directions at your clueless, blindfolded pals.

Check out the video!

Climbing walls
Standard indoor climbing walls are tricky at the best of times, but Adventure Zone has taken the ordinary climbing wall blueprints, crunched them into a ball and kicked them into the ether. It’s all about climbing up dinosaur skeletons, castle facades and racing your friends against the clock. There’s even a quizzical climbing wall where you need to answer a question correctly to proceed. Fail, and you fall.

Don’t worry too much after about landing on your bottom. All the climbing walls at Adventure Zone use an automatic belaying system – a magnetic braking method that eliminates the need for a human belayer. The auto belay takes up the slack as a climber ascends and safely controls the descent when the climber lets go or falls.

For more serious climbers, The Climbing Pinnacle is 6 metres high with grading from beginners to intermediate.

Other activities
Even the narrow outside space has been used to create an adventure playground with a small bike and skate pump track outside. We’ve also had it on good authority that the Adventure Café – Adventure HQ’s first foray into the world of f&b – does exceedingly good milkshakes.

Adventure Zone by Adventure HQ, The Galleria on Al Wasl Road, Jumeriah 1 (near post office), Dhs30 (30-minute session), Dhs90 (60-minute session), Dhs120 (90-minute session). Tel: (04) 3435110. adventurehq.ae