Hangloose @ Eden Project

Day 3! Another day, another adrenaline filled adventure! This morning we made the 10 minute drive (very well planned by Michael) to the Eden Project to conquer Hangloose!

We parked up and took the dog for a wander round before making our way across to tackle the zip line, the backwards zip line and the aerial treetop trek!

Thunder delays play

We signed in and was just about kitted up in our harnesses and helmets, about to watch the safety video, ready for the zip line until disaster – THUNDER!

Thunder meant that everything stops for a minimum of half an hour, and to make matters worse, every time there was a clap of thunder, the half an hour timer restarted! We were rearing to go at 10:15 when the first clap of thunder was heard and the adrenaline came to a halt, the thunder continued for about 15 minutes, each time restarting the timer and making everyone concerned as to whether or not the day would get going!

With everything crossed, the half an hour timer finished at 11am, we quickly jumped into the minibus and headed up to the top cabin, hoping and praying that the thunder would stay at bay! We got to the top, got all strapped in and before we knew it we were off, a little bit of thunder was never going to stop us!

We hurtled across the Eden Project, with the views of the biodomes a blur as the rain hit our faces at 60mph (ouch!). We were at the bottom in half a minute or so, dripping wet but beaming from ear to ear!

Going backwards

We were unclipped from our harnesses and ran round to the cabin, like kids that get off a rollercoaster and run round to go back on as there was no queue, to get kitted back up to go again – but this time to go backwards!

We’ve done a couple of Ziplines in our time, including Zipworld at Penrhyn Quarry, but never had we gone backwards and neither of us knew what to expect! But what an experience!! We hurtled down, again at 60mph, but with no idea of where we were going or when we were going to reach the bottom!

All we could see were the fantastic biodomes and the maze that was the Eden Project, in all its glory (despite the gloomy forecast) although this time we weren’t being pelted at by the rain! Perfect!

As we hit the bottom we both instantly said the same thing = it’s so much more fun going backwards!! Would 100% recommend doing it, we were the only people we saw, whilst we were there, going backwards but genuinely was a whole new experience and we loved it! Adrenaline was definitely pumping and I for one could have kept going on the zip line all day!

The aerial trek

Our final adventure was the Aerial Trek which is essentially a high ropes/treetop adventure – but also one of my biggest fears! I love an adventure; ziplines, rollercoasters, the lot, but attach me to a rope in the sky, in a harness and try and tackle obstacles is tough as all I can think about is I have no balance and I will fall off!

And whilst I know that I am attached and the worst thing that’s going to happen is that I’ll slip and be hanging in the air looking like a bit of a muppet, it still just instils fear into me! But here we are facing our third and final adventure of the day, ready to give it all we’ve got!

We got into our harnesses, helmets on, safety briefing done, and the trees are about to become our playground! The instructors told us that the least confident person should go first, so that meant that I was up, it was clearly a ploy for me to do it wrong so that Michael learnt what not to do and then showed off the correct way to do it, but we are where we are!

Off I went, we had ropes walls to climb, spinning logs to compete with, log swings to step across, a small zip line, and so much more! It was wet, it was slippery, we fell off but most importantly we had a right laugh!

It also ended on a zip line where you went down a slide and relied on your harness to carry you down to the bottom over a small lake, which was awesome! Highly recommend all 3 activities that we did, but you could also choose from a giant swing, an air bag jump or a base jump and they all looked brilliant!

Highly recommend Hangloose at Eden, it was so easy, the staff were fab and upbeat and we were just so grateful that we managed to do all 3 activities after thunder delayed play! We will definitely be coming back again!

A quieter end to the day

We headed back to the van, gave Bentley a lot of fuss for being awesome whilst we were out, cleaned up all the rain that had got in as we left the roof windows open (oops!) and off we went!

We were headed to our campsite for the night, and tonight we were staying at The Brook House Inn in Castle Cary. When we arrived, it was lovely! They have a huge beer garden with a play park (swings, climbing frame etc) for the kids and out the back was their touring field.

The first thing we said was the space between the pitches was brilliant, we were pitch 10, I think there were about 20/22 pitches in total but the space was brilliant. We’ve been to a few campsites where they would have squeezed in 1, maybe 2 pitches in the space we were given here – that’s how much space we had!

The facilities were fab too, we had electric hook up, there was fresh water, a place to dump waste water and your chemical toilet. The toilet/shower block/washing up block looked clean and well maintained too. We “unbattened the hatches”, set up camp for the night and sat outside with the dog enjoying a drink.

We were planning on meeting up with Michael’s godmother tomorrow as they live in a village nearby, but with the weather forecast for tomorrow looking pretty damn miserable we decided to meet up with them this evening.

We took the dog on a lovely walk around the fields, it was so quiet we were able to let Bentley off lead and he had a really good run around which tired him out! We then ambled round the village they live in, getting to know all the sites; the church, the pub (very important!) the school, the shop and the cheese factory!

We then went and sat in their gorgeous garden and had a lovely catch up with Prosecco and cake! It was a beautiful evening and we could have sat with them all night catching up on life! Peaceful end to an adrenaline filled day!

Stick around as we leave England and enter Wales tomorrow! ✌🏼