You might think that Wainwright would turn in his grave, hearing that we spent a day in the Lake District without walking. But I’d like to imagine that he would have had just as much fun up in the trees as we had.
Yesterday we went on a high wire course through the tree tops of the Grizedale forrest and it was a fantastic experience! Mainly because this is the UK and the litigation-craze is a bit more subdued so they actually let you do the course on your own, without an instructor breathing down your neck at every platform. Of course, for the first 15 min that’s the scariest part but once you’ve clipped yourself on and off a few times, it becomes routine and you start noticing the wilderness around you and the height *gasp* instead.
You start off with a safety introduction where you learn to use your equipment: two safety lines and a pulley, all attached to a sexy harness. Once everyone’s comfortable with the different parts (“Mr. Blue goes through; Red’s first on, last off; ALWAYS STAY ATTACHED”), you’re led to the first stage which isn’t too high yet and where you get to try the different obstacles such as zip line, tarzan swing, ladder and crossing. During this stage, there are a few instructors around, checking that everyone is following the correct procedure when clipping on and off. You go over a few minor crossings, do a mini-tarzan swing and then ride down a zip line wiiiiiiiiiiii! After you’ve landed and picked all the wood-chips out of your underwear, you’re on your own and on to stage 2-6. I won’t go into the details of each stage and obstacle, instead a few visual aids:
Go Ape!
Uhm, handrails anyone?
Incooooommiiiiinnnngg!
The next Spiderman, for sure
The Tarzan swing of death
He made it!
And the good-bye zip:
[…] to offer. On our first day we went for a canopy zip line tour which wasn’t as scary as the Go Ape experience we had in England but it was still great fun with 13 zip lines zigzaging down the […]