The rest of my family and I enjoy a Go Ape, so we came out this morning for a bout of tree climbing and high ropes at the nearby centre. After our picnic lunch, and while the kids were amusing themselves in the play area (they couldn’t be persuaded to join
me for a walk!), I excused myself for a few minutes to find this cache.
A great cache in an excellent location. I get so sick of tiny caches barely off the footpath, so it’s a real treat to find one of a decent size a little further into the woods!
TNLN, SL, TFTC. Now I’d better get back to the family so we can
all go swimming!
Many of you will remember that we went to Go Ape as part
of Ruth & JTA’s stag/hen night, last year… and that we dressed as superheroes.
Superheroes gathered with civilians outside Jordans YHA, at Ruth and JTA's Stag/Hen Weekend party.
Well: it looks like we made a big difference to one little girl. Do you remember the kid who was scared to go on the big “tarzan swing” until she was cheered on my a group of us,
hanging from the next platform along? Well, it turns out that we were mentioned in that girl’s family’s review of the day.
A review of the day out, by Emily Sarwa. Click on it to see it embiggened.
That’s kind-of sweet.
In other news, we’ll be doing another Go Ape trip on 27th
March, to celebrate Paul‘s birthday. More of you ex-Aberites read my blog than has, so – if you’re coming – Paul’s asked
me to remind you to fill in the form on his
blog post about the event (we need to do this so we can pre-book for the appropriate number of people), and we’ll see you there! (superhero costumes are not mandatory, but you
know I’ll be wearing mine…)
With their wedding just around the corner, Ruth and JTA had a combined stag/hen party weekend, a couple of weeks
back. You’ve probably already seen part one and part two – here’s the finale! Click on pictures if you want to see them larger.
Sunday
A Simpler Breakfast
Compared to the big fry-up of the day before, Sunday’s breakfast was a far simpler continental-style affair with croissants and fruit.
Sunday’s breakfast. Help yourself!
Suit Up
For today’s event, many of us had decided to dress as superheroes/costumed heroes/costumed vigilantes (Paul wouldn’t let me use the generic term superheroes to describe those without
superpowers, and JTA objected to the notion that his costume – Rorscach from
Watchmen – could be considered a hero, so I’m using these three terms together in
order to satisfy everybody).
Superheroes/vigilantes/whatever gathered with civilians outside Jordans YHA.
I was The Flash, which pipped my first choice – Bananaman – to the post after I became concerned that Bananaman’s cape would prohibit me from
wearing a climbing harness (in actual fact, it wouldn’t have caused any problem, as Owen – dressed as Batman – demonstrated).
The Flash picks Batman up by the neck.
Needless to say: all being dressed as comic book characters quickly lead to a series of play fights and staged photos.
The Flash, Batman, Robin, and Catwoman beat the crap out of Kick-Ass.
This silliness persisted all the way to our destination.
Batman and Catwoman face off.
Which, in case you hadn’t guessed already, was…
Go Ape!
Ruth and I had been together to a Go Ape! centre before, while celebrating our third anniversary last summer, and she’d decided that it was so much fun that it should absolutely be on
the list of activities for the Stag/Hen weekend event. As Siân once wrote: you get to channel your inner Indiana Jones and traverse ricketty bridges between the tree tops, jump from
platform to platform, scramble across cargo nets and… fly down the zip lines.
The safety briefing.
Of course, everything is even more fun when you do it wearing a silly costume. Except perhaps putting on a climbing harness: this was particularly fun for Robin – dressed as Robin –
when the instructor discovered the padded bulge in his tights while helping him tighten his straps.
The Flash climbs from tree to tree above the forest floor.
Climbing, leaping, swinging, flying. Even the most cautious in our group got into the swing of things as they hopped from tree to tree across the ropes and bridges that stretched around
the forest. The Tarzan swings – and especially the second one, with it’s “drop off” before the rope catches you – were particularly awesome at the Black Park Go Ape course. Needless to say, we got
plenty of attention from confused-looking ramblers on the ground as they saw costumed heroes leaping around above them.
The Boy Wonder on the Bat-Zipline.
There’s also a lot of fun to be had in playing at being superheroes and fighting atop a high platform, punching your opponent and sending them flying (secured to a wire, of course) off
the side and away. Yes, we played like little kids, and it was awesome.
Kick-Ass slams into a cargo net at the end of the smaller of the two Tarzan Swings.
After we’d come down from the trees, we ate lunch – leftovers from breakfast, mostly – and greeted passing children with calls of “Did somebody call for a superhero?” The original plan
would have seen us go to a nearby sauna/spa to chill out at the end of such a long weekend, but we’d spent so long playing about at Go Ape! that we decided to drop this from the plan,
and instead call an end to a fantastic weekend.
Catwoman dodges Batman’s flying kick in the Go Ape! car park.
All in all, a fantastic weekend. Huge thanks to everybody who came and helped to make it a success. See you at the wedding!
Photos
If anybody’s interested, there’s a gallery of many of the photos we took, including the ability to download the high-resolution versions in a convenient ZIP file for your offline use,
here.
