We had an amazing time & lots of laughs. On Friday we ate chilli & rice followed by Cards Against Humanity & wine around the fire. On Saturday we cycled to Dinnet & back (about 14 miles) then had a browse round the local shops before heading back to the house for BBQ, cheese & wine tasting and more card games. On Sunday I'm amazed I wasn't hungover. Surprisingly I actually felt not too bad! Anyway, we left Ballater & drove to Crathes as we were booked for a session at Go Ape.
We arrived at the historic Crathes Castle with plenty of time to spare, so we had a bite to eat in the cafe before heading to the Go Ape reception to sign in. The Go Ape Tree Top Adventure is advertised as one of the best days out in Aberdeen so we were keen to check it out. If you haven't heard of it before, Go Ape takes you on a forest adventure where you enjoy 2-3 hours in the trees taking on Zip Wires, Tarzan Swings, Rope Ladders and a variety of other obstacles and crossings. You have to be over 10 years old, over 1.4m tall and under 130kg to participate.
There are three tree top adventure courses in Scotland. Aberfoyle in Stirlingshire which has two of Britain's longest zip wires. Glentress Forest near Peebles which has the highest zip wire in the country and Crathes Castle which features the skateboard zip wire.
We had a thorough safety briefing before we got started and my heart was racing as we were accompanied down to the first obstacle. The first part of the course is only a meter or so above the ground, just to give you a taster of what's to come and let you practice using the equipment. I however slipped on the first step up on the rope ladder and screamed a bit. How was I going to cope in the tree tops?! Much laughter ensued from the queue behind me!
Well, I made it round the whole course in 2 hours and there was only one section that I couldn't manage but it's my own fault for choosing the 'extreme' route rather than the easy one!
I had anticipated it to be heart racing/adrenaline packed the whole way through which it wasn't, but it was certainly a decent workout (my arms ached the next day) and I did properly freak out in a couple of parts that were definitely a bit nervy. The final tarzan swing was epic... as you'll see from the videos we took. And you'll also spot my epic fail......(apologies in advance for the swearwords, it wasn't me!).
Despite having a great time, we felt the price was perhaps a bit steep for the experience (I wish now that we'd gone to one of the other Scottish sites with the longer zip wires). It's £30 for Gorillas (over 18 years) and £24 for Baboons (10-17 years), which meant it would have cost us £120 for the 4 of us. However, I've organised a 10% discount at all Scottish sites if you quote the code GLMUM10. This code is valid until 30th November 2014 and excludes Saturdays and corporate events.
So, what do you think? Have you tried Go Ape before? I reckon it would be good fun for a corporate team building exercise!
We had a complimentary experience of Go Ape for four in exchange for an honest review. Opinions as always are my own.