Zip wires, axe throwing and mountain adventures

At the annual “what do you want for Christmas” discussion, it was pointed out by my family, that I have everything I want because I just buy it when I need things.

I suggested maybe we could do something unusual for the present rather than buy things. I was thinking maybe a meal, boat trip, maybe even a weekend away. My family seemed to take this idea more to heart than I had anticipated.

On Christmas Day I opened my cards as normal. In the first card there I was a bit surprised to find a voucher from my youngest son for an Axe and Knife Throwing experience, which I had to admit did reflect what I had asked for.

The second card just said Happy Christmas Dad in the normal way and when I came to the third card there was another surprise. A voucher for the longest and fastest Zip Wire ride in the world, from my wife.

Wooksie was clearly trying to get her own back, because she knows I am scared of heights, and she loves things like jumping out of planes with parachutes. In normal circumstances she is a woman who does detail, but on this occasion she was so keen to buy the biggest, scariest and fastest Zip Wire ride she hadn’t checked the location, which happened to be Snowdonia, over 6 hours away by car.

It hadn’t gone unnoticed that the present was for two people, and Wooksie clearly assumed she would be coming as well.

Axe Throwing

Youngest son is no mug, and realised that I was unlikely to go on the Axe Throwing at Bristol Activity Centre on my own so ended up getting a free day out as I ended up paying for him.

What he didn’t expect was a master class in Axe and Knife throwing from his old man, after a slow start The Dad Lad ended up winning the throw off at the end – hoorah for Dad and note the medal.

Flushed with success, I put on episodes of Vikings of Valhalla to imagine how I would have fared if faced by screaming Norseman, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Axe Throwing was only 20 minutes from home so wasn’t a challenge. Getting to Snowdonia was a far more epic journey and after months of procrastination we picked a day and headed for Snowdonia and Zip World.

Zip Wire Snowdonia and Gremlins

As it was a special treat, I hunted down a really nice hotel based on the design of a 5* French Chateau on Anglessey. I kept this a secret so it would be a nice surprise when we got there, and it was only for 1 night.

The nice surprise turned out to have teeth, because on the way up Booking.com sent me a reminder that I was staying at the Chateau the next day. I pondered this scheduling error from my calendar, and on checking I had booked to arrive on Thursday, not leave. This meant we didn’t have a hotel for the tonight.

Desperately, I tried to ring them from a service station without Wooksie noticing that I was in panic mode. When I got through, they were very helpful and understanding, but full.

We changed drivers so I could deal with the problem in the passenger seat, because at this point, we were sleeping in the back of the car rather than a Chateau. I was discreetly tapping away on the phone trying to find a hotel without Wooksie noticing, but got dirty looks for fiddling with my phone and not chatting.

Eventually, I found a hotel in Bangor. I have to admit the feedback was only 6, but it was the only one with a double room and a view of the Menai Straights that night. I broke the news to Wooksie who took it with her normal good humour, as she said, I’d expect nothing less, “nearly a 5* hotel sums up my life”.

The hotel was truly awful, how it achieved a rating of 6 I will never know. The door on the bedroom didn’t fit, the lock didn’t work, the bar down was huge and full of students celebrating the start of term, or end of term or something that involved lots of noise, and as for the view of the Menai Strait – only if you leaned out the window and tree had been cut down.

A night in Bangor wasn’t much better, we tried a pub that seemed to have an integrated fish and chip shop. This was going OK until the bingo started.

So we left, went into a cosey looking wine bar called Voltaire and unfortunately had our first ever vegan meal, which was kind of tasty and I’ve got a tick in that “Ever had a vegan meal” box now.

After a 6 hour drive, this was all very unwelcome but the views of the Menai Straights were pleasant enough before we went to bed full of excitement about the 30 second Zip Wire ride that awaited us.

The Zip Wire location was on the slopes of Mt Snowdon and located in a disused quarry. It turns out that there are a number of these in Wales that utilise natural features to help tourism, which seems a very good idea. It also turns out there is one in South Wales, less than an hour from our house – hmmm.

First impressions were really good, with a very professional set up and safety preparation. We had booked a time slot and pretty much everything went to plan.

The package contained TWO rides, which was a bit of a surprise. First ride was a practice and we had to walk a few hundred metres up the mountain to the launch pad. The process was reassuringly regimented as we were loaded on to beds.

Then our body bags were connected to the rails. There was lots of shouting of check this and check that which was also reassuring as we prepared to launch. Then the bump, as the beds dropped and we were suspended in space, the heart jumps, misses a beat and then we were off. Flying headfirst towards the wall of the quarry but in the way was a big bumper pad and some nice young people grabbing us as we arrived and a gentle landing, before loading into our transport to the top.

Next big surprise was the transport to get to the real deal at the top. No chair lift or gondolas here in Wales, we were driven up in a monster truck. It was about 4km of winding roads climbing up at some crazy angles, the trucks seemed to defy gravity at times and roared those big wheels up the trail.

When we arrived at the top it was a totally different perspective to the practice run. The ride is about 2.5km in total the bottom looked a long, long way away.

There must have been a least 20 people in the truck so being a gentleman of a certain age, I let the young people go first, then the elderly and infirm, women until eventually Wooksie pointed out I was going to have to get on sooner or later.

Now the adverts say that you can reach speeds of 100mph on the run down, which I was a bit dubious of, so I set my Garmin to time the run using the Snowboard widget.

It was the same procedure for loading on. Lying on beds followed by lots of shouting. Strangely this ride wasn’t as intimidating at the start as the practice run.

This was mainly because when you are loaded the ground is quite close so you don’t get the feeling of height. Things soon change when you get going but by then you are literally flying through the air.

The ride was a strange experience. We started off slowly and Wooksie moved ahead because she is lighter. It’s not like I’m competitive or anything, but I wasn’t going to come second to her!

So I put my head down to accelerate and next thing I am flying past Wooksie. It’s as if I’m rocket propelled when my extra weight to take effect. I opened my mouth to shout encouragement only for my mouth to fill full of air at 90mph, instead of noise coming out, my cheeks just flapped uncontrollably until we started to slow down at the bottom and being rescued by a young person with a very long stick with a hook on the end.

As you can see from the Garmin record above, I hit a maximum speed of 145kph, which is roughly 90mph, if I’d just kept my mouth shut I would probably made it to 100mph, might be the story of my life.

It was a really good day out and lots of fun, and almost justified the 12 hours in car getting to Snowdonia and back. It will be interesting to see what my next Christmas card contains.