Has anyone ever been to
Go Ape? They have sites around the UK, it's based in forests and is basically a sort of assault course travelling from platform to platform up in the trees. You get a safety harness which you use to attach yourself to the safety lines as you travel from one obstacle to the next and the obstacles vary in difficulty, from a tightrope with a line to hold onto, to what are basically floating horse stirrups as in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf2DgD5CDQ0I went on Monday, with my little sister and my nephew, whom some of you know from XBL. It was a great experience, it starts with a zip line over to the course, and ends with what used to be the UKs longest zipline, it's something crazy like 500m long and travels 150ft above the ground passing over the treetops and a waterfall. There are some sections where you get an option of doing a moderately difficult crossing or black extreme difficulty ones. My nephew wanted to do the black routes so I dutifully accompanied him across, including the stirrup crossing in that video. They are really scary, you forget you are attached to a safety line and instead put all your concentration into trying to balance and pull yourself across. It was such a great sense of achievement once I was across although after a couple of particularly nerve jangling ones the amount of adrenaline in my body had me shaking a bit!
After one of the more difficult ones, I watched someone coming along behind us who crossed it by letting their harness take their weight then just pulling themselves along the line...that thought hadn't even crossed my mind and I'm glad of that because I think if i had considered it then that would have been the approach I used and instead I actually managed something that previously had looked impossible.
The one I went to was in Aberfoyle, near Stirling. A new one has opened recently near the borders at Glentress so I am planning a trip there, probably around the October holidays so as my nephew can came along again (I probably need him there to talk me into the more scary bits!).
If any of you have one of these places within travelling distance, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Such a buzz, something totally different to how days off are usually spent and a real sense of pride in yourself once it's done. It's really sparked something in me and i think I might look at paying a couple of visits to climbing walls now.
Also, if anyone wants to visit Scotland in October, they're welcome to join us!
Has anyone here been to any of the others?