Once a year the whole of the Myakka teams leaves HQ and heads out for a day of fun staff training. This year we visited Go Ape at Moors Valley Country Park in Dorset for a day of fun aping about and swinging through the trees.
Despite the ridiculous heavy rain on Wednesday, twenty five members of the Myakka team put on a rather unflattering safety harness and a rain coat and made our way to a safety briefing – the most important lesson being always stay attached! This is easier said than done as there was a lot of clipping, unclipping, other ropes and wires to deal with.
Once we were suitably briefed we started the first stage of the five stage course with an easy going course to ease us into the techniques and to make sure we had all listened to the safety briefing. Once we had all completed that and answered some safety questions we were let loose on the rest of the four stages of the course. After each course there was a long zip wire that was for most of us the highlight of each stage, especially the wire on stage three that was the longest and the fastest. This was the hardest wire to reach, as an extra ladder had to be climbed to get enough height to make the zip wire as long as possible.
After we had all come down from the trees having completing five challenging courses which included crawling through barrels, climbing up numerous rope ladders and cargo nets, balancing across rope bridges as well an extreme rated Tarzan, swing which was particularly scary, we sat down to a delicious BBQ – despite the chilly weather.
A great day was had by all, not even the rain, try as it might, could dampen our spirits! A big thank you goes to the Go Ape team who made the day a real success! To find out more about Go Ape and to find a course near you, click here. Or to find out more about spending a day outside at the lovely Moors Valley Country park, click here.
