Military Police at the Adventure Rope Course

All smiling at the end of a great day
All smiling at the end of a great day

The temperature may have been hovering at around zero today, but 21 members of the Royal Military Police based at Donnington Barracks in Telford came across to spend the day at the Adventure Rope Course. Having been instructed to do some adventurous training, but then forced to pay for it themselves due to cutbacks, I was expecting a degree of resentment from the lads today. However, they were up for a laugh and made it a fantastic day for us all.

My group of ten started the morning on the High All Aboard, which makes for an interesting introduction to the ropes course. We sometimes manage to get four people standing on the platform at the top the pole simultaneously, but limited it to three today. However, it’s still a real challenge to get up there when someone’s already taking up all the room. This was also our dry run on passing on lots of skills in terms of correct fitting of safety equipment, knot tying and correct use of belay devices.

Almost at the top of the Jacobs Ladder
Almost at the top of the Jacobs Ladder

We then moved on the the Jacobs Ladder, where they had mixed success. While one group struggled to get passed the third rung on the ladder within the 10 minutes allowed, another raced to the very top in about eight and a half minutes – very impressive. It’s one of those activities that look pretty straight forward from the ground but, once you’re on it, it soon becomes apparent how wobbly everything feels and how difficult is is to make progress without teamwork.

The Crate Stack came next. This is usually a bit unstable anyway but, with the fact that the stack of crates was being built on top of a platform covered with a layer of ice, made it all the more of a challenge. If I remember correctly, one of the groups made it up to 10 layers of crates before time ran out the crates came crashing down.

After a generous lunch break, I sent my group into the Adventure Tunnels. This is a very different type of task for the rope course, involving making your way through a maze with various obstacles, gathering information that will hopefully enable you to get out at the other end. Some of the guys found themselves going round in circles for a while, but seemed to have fun in the process.

"What am I doing here?"
“What am I doing here?”

Next up was the Leap of Faith, which is purely an individual test of nerve at heights. Climb the pole (easy) and stand on top of the platform (not so easy), before leaping off again. From the ground, you can see that the platform only wobbles a couple of inches but, while you’re stood on it, it feels like it’s about to topple over.

Finally, we finished the day off with a session on the Giant Swing. Done in pairs, this always causes a few interesting exclamations, and the occasional expletive, as people feel weightless dropping towards the ground. I haven’t yet worked out if it is more fun being on the swing, or watching other people’s faces.

It may have been a cold day, but everyone in the group was on form today. It made the session great fun for me as well, and I’m very grateful for everyone’s positive approach to everything we through at them.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *