GoApe: Life Live Adventurously

Earlier this month the lovely people from Big Partnership dared me to challenge myself and to give Halloween a whole new scary edge - so off I went to zip above the forest and swing through the trees at GoApe.

GoApe is a tree-top adventure course, with three sites in Scotland - Aberdeenshire, Perth and Aberfoyle. We headed up to the Aberfoyle course where we were treated to zip-wires, Tarzan swings, obstacles and rope crossings - all whilst pretty high up off the ground!

Hidden away in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park the stunning scenery provides an amazing back-drop to the day. The main attraction is "two of Britain's longest zip wires, each stretching over 400m long, flying customers 150 feet above the ground and over a 90 foot waterfall." It's a pretty fantastic way to take in all the amazing views and a little more thrilling!

GoApe is all about challenging people to life live adventurously, take a leap out of your comfort zone and push yourself. And we decided, that instead of covering ourselves in fake blood and face paint, we would do something a little different this Halloween and re-interpret scary in a whole new way.

And they definitely throw you in at the deep-end! The first challenge you face is doing one of the epic zip-wires into the course site!

Before you do this though, you go through a training procedure, as once you're up in the tree-tops you're responsible for your own safety. They were really good at taking us through how to stay safe step by step, allowing us to test our harnesses and safety clips on mock-ups of the course (with our feet firmly on the ground at this point!) It made me feel so much more comfortable and our instructor was really helpful and great at calming any last minute nerves....

And then ziiiiiiiiiiiip and you're away!

Once you crash land into your first stop the adrenaline kicks in and nerves turn into a bundle of excitement as you head to the first site to complete the first obstacles.

There are different sites as you go round the course - and they all start by climbing up into the trees!

The first warms you up with easier obstacles and crossings. Each section involves clambering from tree to tree in a different way, from easier steps to more difficult nets.

I would say that the third section was definitely the hardest. But, it does have an easy or extreme option. I went for extreme eeeeek.

Once we'd swung across the forest and our arms were beginning to ache to was time for the final challenge - the zip-wire home.

This was one of my favourite bits. We were the last two to complete the course and they sky was turning a really pretty dusky, autumnal pink. It was something really special to be whizzing, plenty of feet in the air, through the breath-taking scenery. You could see for miles and the birds-eye view, with the wind whistling past, isn't something you get to see often. The trees swoosh by underneath, all red, orange and yellow. Keep an eye out and don't miss the stunning waterfall thundering down.

It was such a good feeling to have completed the course. It was pretty physical and I impressed myself that I managed all the challenges, some of them at record-speed I must say. And I really felt like I had achieved something (especially as a certain someone, ahem the BF, said he thought I'd be rubbish!) Plus it wasn't all that scary, more scary-excited! It was so nice to do something completely different for Halloween - and a weekend in general - instead of hibernating under the duvet and catching up on TOWIE challenging myself to do something new and different, then completing it(!) was a really fantastic feeling!

So dare yourself to life live adventurously!

GoApe is £31 for ages 16 and over and £25 for ages 10-15.

P.S. - massive shout-out to Helen who came along with me, despite her fear of heights, and completed the course like a little monkey - she did amazing!

**This was a promotional post, but all views are my own. Obvs.