RedFM Staff day at Ballyhass lakes!

The Cork's RedFM Staff made the short trip to Ballyhass Lakes yesterday for an activities day. Located just outside Mallow, Ballyhass Lakes was our playground for the day. We were split up in to three teams and each sent off to one of three different activites - Kayaking, Ziplining (including the "Leap of Faith" - more on that later!) and The Low Ropes. (Ruairi, showboating. Not like him!) Ziplining was first up for our team, Team Three, renamed Team Hagan/Team Bench by me. No one else called it that though. It seems simple enough on paper - attach yourself to a metal rope, leg it off the platform and glide across the lake to the other side. It's at the other side that things got difficult though. In order to finish the zipline in a horizontal state, you have to start running in the air before you hit the ground, and then slow yourself down before the end of the line. Again, simple enough on paper. It's when you're coming in backwards and when you slide on your arse all the way up to the end that things come to an undignified (and slightly painful) end. A great feeling when you nail a landing though! (Stevie getting it done!) The Leap of Faith was part of the ziplining activity. Essentially you shimmy up what amounts to a large telephone pole, with a small platform at the top. You then stand on top of that platform, inch your way closer to the edge and sink your eyes on the target - a small trapeeze pole about 6 feet away. Again, sounds simple on paper. Not so much when you get up there, when the wind is shaking the platform, the ground is far, far below you and your knees are trembling, and you have that feeling in the bottom of your stomach like you haven't done your homework and you're about to tell your teacher. I bent my knees, took a deep breath... And jumped. But not far enough. My fingers grasped the pole, then slipped off it. I hadn't made it. The adrenaline rush was something else though! After lunch we moved on to kayaking, my favourite part of the day. After falling into the wonderfully fresh refreshing water far too many times to count in the first five minutes, our instructors started giving us challenges. Sit right to the back of the kayak and paddle. Sit right up the front and paddle. Stand up and paddle. Lean over as far as you can and try to blow bubbles in the water. Group everyone together and everyone stand up at the same time. This all resulted in everyone falling into the water many more times. But when the water was crystal clear and invigorating as it was in Ballyhass, falling in hardly seemed like a failure at all. It almost seemed like a reward! The kayaking session ended with jumping into the lake off a small pier - the old fashioned cannonball being a big favourite there! After changing out of our wetsuits we moved on to the Low Ropes. This was a fiendishly difficult challenge that involved every member of our group working as a team to get around an obstacle course - the only catch being you couldn't step to the ground. Much bickering, swearing and falling later we'd gotten through, elated at our achievement, and absolutely knackered from the day's activities. All three groups gathered together to receive the results. Team Three (Team Hagan/Team Bench) won out in the end (due to our general awesomeness), but we all had a great day out and can't wait to do it again! Ruairi