I'd bought a voucher from Groupon for a canoeing and cliff jumping adventure experience. It's been…read morea great introduction, as I'd never heard of Go Country before, and now I know them, I'd definitely want to go back and do another activity with them.
The experience was fantastic! A bit mental, but fantastic! We canoed over the loch, parked the boats (or whatever it is you do with boats) on the far shore, and then swam over to the little islands. I thought he was kidding when he said we had to swim, but nope, no joke. Then we climbed the little islands and flung ourselves off from various heights and positions. It was magic.
I was really impressed with the whole set up of the place. There were 2 gentlemen dealing with us at the start, and they were really friendly and full of light-hearted banter, presumably to help us feel less nervous about the impending cliff fling. They issued us all with wet suits, spray jackets, life jackets and helmets, and carefully checked that we had everything on correctly. We then had a brief introduction on safety and how to paddle properly, and then off to the canoes! The instructor had a wee motor boat, which was good, as he was able to herd us all together with the boat like a sheep dog guiding its unruly herd, and was quickly able to get to any canoe that was struggling. He had a job on his hands, as in our group there was one canoe team who just could not steer and fell way behind - they ended up getting a lift in his boat, another one who were fighting against the wind with only two people instead of 3 and ended up hitching a lift by clinging on to the side of his boat, one canoe that took on too much water, and he had to give them a bucket to bail out with, and one canoe that tipped over, ditching the 3 people into the loch! And then he had a few people (myself included) who were havering over the big jumps. I must have been to the cliff edge about a hundred times before I finally jumped. This guy was patience personified.
The facilities are a basic set up, but this is what you would expect. There are portacabin changing rooms, which are basic but clean, and chemical portaloos. Don't be expecting any hot showers when you're done. The setting itself is beautiful. When we were paddling back to base we had a stunning view of the hills, with Ben Lomond towering in the distance, and afterwards we sat on a bench just watching people and ducks go by on the loch.
They have an inflatable water park which looks like it could be a real laugh, and other activities like hamster balling, kayaking, mountain biking, archery, climbing and abseiling and other various outdoor activiites. They'll even hire you everything you need if you want to do camping. Next on my list is gorge walking!
They also have an agreement with the McDonald Forest Hills hotel which is directly opposite, so if you're with a group of people, and not all of you want to do the outdoorsy things, some people can choose relax in their leisure suite, or have a massage treatment instead. They really have thought of everything - it's a very good set up and I'm looking forward to doing another experience with them again soon.
