Tree-mendous

Emmie came to stay for the weekend and we decided to book Go-Ape in Swinley Forest, Bracknell.

Grandad, Alun and Emmie signed up for the Treetop Adventure + with a mixture of excitement and trepidation: Alun was looking forward to the experience but was also a bit worried that he would develop vertigo up in the trees.  I worried in case a harness would give out and they would plummet to the ground below but thankfully there were no mishaps and they had a great time.

After a downpour of rain as we left the house the morning turned out to be dry with a blue sky when we arrived to undertake the treetop adventure.  During the training session they were encouraged to stand apart and there was hand sanitiser available at the starting point.  The training lasted about 10 minutes and consisted of an explanation about how to safely connect the harness to the apparatus above and then they got to practise doing this at ground level. 

 The difficulty of the courses increased as they progressed round the park. Each course was made up of a mixture of different obstacles, including wooden crossings that moved beneath their feet, a tunnel they had to crawl through, hanging ropes to grasp, rope nets to crawl over and high speed zip lines to get you back down to ground level.  They said it was really good  fun (Nanna stayed on the ground as official photographer!!!) and really got their adrenaline pumping!  Some of the crossings looked and are really challenging as the wooden steps swayed under their body weight so they needed to strike the right balance to keep the step they were on stable enough to progress to the next step.  They also needed a bit of upper body strength, mostly in their arms, to be able to grab the hanging ropes or spider across the rope nets.  Emmie was amazing - all that gym training has paid off.

The highest platform was 50 feet up in the trees.  Go Ape Bracknell is located in Swinley Forest, which comprises over 11 square kilometres (2,600 acres) of woodland and is a beautiful setting for the adventure.  The air is clean and scented with the sweet, fresh smell of the Scots pines that populate the forest.

It was an excellent adventure in beautiful surroundings.  Well done you three.