Go Ape, Conquered!

As a "well done for Graduating" and a present for his 22nd, I took Rob to Go Ape in the Forest of Dean. I wanted to do this for his birthday last year but my measly student budget wouldn't allow it, so I was extremely happy I could finally book it, only a year after I originally wanted to take us!

Unfortunately I don't own a GoPro or anything similar so I couldn't get any footage of the actual course but trust me, it was so good! I've always loved climbing and actually did part of my Year 10 work experience at an outdoor activity centre, so I wasn't worried about wasting my money and not enjoying it. You go around the course by yourself without any direct guidance from the leaders, so you're responsible for your own safety and checking all the clips are closed properly. They give you a good talk before you start so they can check you're being safe and you can have confidence in yourself on the actual course.

At Forest of Dean there are five sections to the course (I haven't been to any others so I'm not sure if they differ) each starts with a rope ladder, much to Rob's dismay, and ended on a zipwire. It's still a good day out, even if you're not the best with heights or end up being more scared than you thought you would, because there are two routes on each section of the course: easy to moderate obstacles and more difficult to extreme. Of course we went on all the difficult to extreme routes, I wanted to get my money's worth! I only wish that the course was longer, I was having way too much fun and didn't want it to end.

Luckily it was a beautiful day, so we were able to have our lunch by the lake and then go for a walk in the forest afterwards. There were loads of these little twig teepees around and we had no idea why, if anyone knows could you please leave a comment explaining?! The course took around two hours to complete and after we'd finish our little forest walk we were all ready to head back home, only to find that my car had decided it didn't want to work. Cue trying to call parents, with barely any signal to get them to come and rescue us (I stupidly didn't have any breakdown cover at the time, that was the first thing I sorted out after getting my car working).

We had such a lovely day and it's definitely whet my appetite for outdoor activities again. Has anyone else been to Go Ape?