Monkeying around has been taken to new level

ON A HIGH: Douglas Morrison races ahead of our Catherine. Picture: DAN PHILLIPS

'YEAH, this is much better than playing on a computer," grins 11-year-old Douglas Morrison.

As he dusts wood shavings off his tracksuit bottoms, he looks eagerly into the sky in search of his next treetop challenge, his eyes glinting at the prospect of another hair-raising adventure.

The schoolboy has just come tearing down a zip wire in the middle of Beecraigs Country Park, landing in a pile of shavings with a graceful thud, having made his way through a series of tricky obstacles suspended a stomach-churning 40ft from the ground.

He is one of the first people to be trying out Go Ape, a forest adventure ground opening tomorrow in the park, just outside of Linlithgow. By his reaction, it is obvious he will want to come back.

"Are you ready for more, Douglas?" asks Jo Roberts, the attraction's deputy manager.

A confident nod and a smile tells her all she needs to know. "Great, let's rock and roll."

Douglas, a pupil at Torphichen Primary School, leads the way, using ropes, pulleys, carabiners and a safety harness he has mastered the use of in just minutes, quickly climbing a ladder up to the dizzy heights of one of the park's many thousands of trees – just one to have been adapted with a wooden platform for Go Ape, allowing visitors to swing, climb, jump and scramble through a series of challenges in the air.

Needless to say, he is quicker than me and the slightly loftier Evening News photographer who have been assigned the challenge of an afternoon at Go Ape, an attraction for both adults and children.

More embarrassing, young Douglas outdoes us at every stage of every obstacle, leaping fearlessly over walkways, running over minute tightropes and throwing himself off platforms and down some of the country's biggest zip wires before we even have the chance to take a deep (and even deeper) breath.

As we scramble ungracefully up yet another tree, methodically attaching our safety ropes to a secure line in accordance with the strict rules we were taught earlier in the afternoon, Douglas is waiting patiently at the top for his shot at another obstacle – this time throwing himself on to an Indiana Jones-style cargo net, many metres from the platform he is currently standing on.

His hands enthusiastically grip the safety rope, his eyes focus intently on the challenge and his feet, moments later, spring him into the air, allowing a safe and satisfying landing on the net.

I look on in hesitation, knowing that while I cannot, and will not, be shown up by an 11-year-old, my body is telling me this is just not right. I cannot help but take a few quick glances at the expanse of forest floor well beneath me before I take the plunge, mentally calculating the consequences of, if by some stroke of very, very bad luck, my harness being a dodgy one.

"It is weird," smiles Jo, a qualified instructor who is always on hand on the ground below to help adventurers. "You know you're safe because of the harness, but it goes against all your natural instincts just to jump, doesn't it?"

Jo is one of the Go Ape team members to have relocated to the area for the attraction, the latest of several in Britain, yet only the second in Scotland, adding to the other in Aberfoyle.

There had been hopes to build one in Glasgow's Pollok Park, but last year the company pulled out amid a protest campaign by fans of the park, despite backing for the attraction by the city council.

The idea behind Go Ape is very simple – an adventure course built high up in the trees, complimenting the natural surroundings and allowing people an opportunity to experience the great outdoors like never before. Visitors to Beecraigs pass freely around the course – built by Frenchmen from the Alps, who apparently scaled the trees during construction with jaw-dropping speed – stopping to watch the daredevil antics unfolding above them.

Of course, it will not appeal to everyone. But for those over ten years old and taller than the 4ft 7ins minimum height restriction, the treetops are their adrenaline oyster – but at a cost.

Go Ape is not cheap, with participants over 18 paying 30 for an adventure, and those younger a slightly more purse-friendly 20.

It may not seem much for the teams of adults – often part of corporate functions, stag or hen parties – who rise to the challenges Go Ape offers, but for families it could be a more costly outing, particularly as an adult must be responsible for every two children with them on the course.

"Yes," smiles manager Stew Deards. "A family of four would have to pay 100 to come here, but it is an experience you are not likely to get elsewhere. It is a proper day out."

He has a point. For although a trip to Go Ape is most likely to be a very special treat for most families in the Lothians, it does take at least three hours to get around the course, which includes the country's longest zip wire, measuring a wind-whipping 266 metres.

The staff seem in no hurry to rush people through the cleverly thought-out obstacles either, also insisting that if at any point in the mandatory training session visitors decide they do not want to continue on to the course, they are assured a full refund.

Having climbed to the highest height of the Go Ape course, I watch as Douglas carelessly throws himself off the final platform, on to a massive zip wire unfolding in front of us.

As he becomes a smaller and smaller dot in the distance, passing over treetops and park pathways, I take a deep breath and pause just a little longer than he did. I take to the wire and speed to the landing area, arriving at the school boy's feet in a rather ungraceful manner on my backside, more akin to Bridget Jones than Indiana. We make our way back to the entrance to the attraction where Douglas' mother Lisa waits for his safe return.

His grin tells her all she needs to know about his afternoon out in the trees – and it gets a parental thumbs up, too.

"This seems like a great place," she says. "It could get children outdoors and off computer games, which even Douglas here loves."

• www.goape.co.uk