Eight of us were supposed to go to Go Ape at Leeds Castle yesterday afternoon. Four of us made the 12.18 from Victoria just as the doors beeped closed. Another two missed that train and ended up in a taxi from Maidstone East. Another two found themselves at an entirely different Go Ape in another part of Kent, misguided by SatNav (after they explained what had happened, Go Ape very kindly let them complete the course at the other site, free of charge).
Feeling sweaty, excited and a bit nervous, six of us strapped ourselves into our harnesses for a half hour briefing on attaching ourselves to cables, zipwires and tarzan swings, after which we were free to spend hours swinging about wherever we wanted in the treetop adventure playground.
Everyone's favourite was the zipwires - some of them so long you spent a good minute whizzing through the forest and over a grassy valley until landing in a pile of woodchips that ploughed their way into your socks, shoes and pants. Luckily it was a lovely sunny day. I wouldn't have fancied soggy woodchips in my knickers.
Other parts of the course were less challenging: there were a lot of rope bridges which we tried to cross without using our hands to provide an adrelanine rush. Also, having to attach and detach yourself from cables at every rope ladder at every crossing slowed the whole process right down, which meant there was a lot of time spent chatting as we waited for the person in front to complete the next bit of the course. It was a bit frustrating, but actually made it a chilled out sociable affair and gave less opportunity for the more macho amongst us - in which category I include myself - to rush through the course at breakneck (literally) speed.
After 3 hours monkeying about we unstrapped ourselves and headed to the pub to recover. Naturally we had to return to the pub after missing our train, running to the platform only to see it pulling out before our eyes. But trains weren't too infrequent, so only an hour later we were on our way home as the Kent countryside, beautifully bathed in evening sunshine, zoomed past.
