Need a Gift that Can’t Fail to Impress? How About an Activity Passport from the Biggest Activity Network in the UK?
A beautifully presented, full-colour Adrenalin Activity Passport that you can personalise with your own message. This will probably be the most exciting gift you will give this year and it is only three clicks away from arriving by email, or you can have it delivered. It’s your choice. This store is open 24 hours, 7 days a week, so it doesn’t matter how last minute your purchase.
Established in 1995, The Activity People is now the biggest and most diverse activity network in UK with over 883 venues. So, when you give an Adreenalin Activity Passport from The Activity People, you are giving the recipient the choice of taking part in any of those activities, anywhere in the UK – an unrivalled adrenalin activities gift.
The Activity People are the preferred activity network for Visit Britain, who put their trust in them to provide activities to UK travellers together with visitors from overseas. The Activity People’s numerous locations and activity diversity means they can also provide activity-based incentive and reward schemes to leading UK companies together with activity options for event managers, gift experience companies and stag and hen organisers.
Click here to buy a full colour, Adrenalin Activity Passport that will either be delivered instantly to your email address on completion of your purchase, or delivered to you or the person receiving the gift – your choice!
How to make the most of weekends in 2011? What are this year’s hot weekend activities? Where to go for short break thrills? Here’s a list of 12 great weekend ideas for extreme fun to ensure every month is bursting with sporting adventure in the New Year.
1. Monster Truck Driving, Sussex.Tired of the traffic and ready to put your foot down in a big way? Monster trucks are a ‘bad ass’ weekend driving experience. From £226 for a two-and-half hour session, it isn’t cheap, but the memory is as big and bold as the US ‘Grizzly’ truck you could be steering. And it’s just about the only time you will be able to bully your way over two police saloon cars without an expensive trip to Her Majesty’s courts.
2. Water Spills, Scotland. No year is complete without an excursion into the wilds of Scotland. Spring snow melts make for a rush of water and adrenalin in rivers across the central belt and the Highlands, which make it great for white water rafting. Prices start from around the £50 mark. And, while you’re up there, adding some canyoning and bungee jumping can make for an exhilarating weekend. The only difficulty is making sure it’s thawing and not still snowing.
3. Walking on water. Yes, really. You too can achieve the miracle of walking on water, courtesy of a plastic zorb. From about £20, the experience is a great buy and as the flotilla of You Tube videos testify, it’s the highlight of many a weekend.
4. Canyoning, Lleyn Peninsula, Wales. Canyoning or coasteering as some people call it, is a cross between mountain climbing, walking, pot-holing and swimming. Half-a-day’s canyoning is around £32.00. For that you get to make your way down a gorge in a wet suit, tackling obstacles as you go. But be warned, depending on the level of water, it can be a challenging activity requiring a high level of fitness. Maybe one to leave until later in the year, when you’re a bit fitter.
5. Riding, Oxfordshire. For those lucky enough to be born in the country, horses are akin to bicycles – transport that keeps you fit – but for the majority of UK urbanites, they are just creatures we lose money on at the bookies. A weekend visit to a riding school such as the one near Banbury can change all that. For around £30, you get a chance to ride indoor or outdoor, with qualified instructors at a centre approved by the Association of British Riding Schools.
6. Quad biking, Yorkshire.This Doncaster site is one of the UK’s most prestigious quad centres. Visitors get the chance bump and slide on Apache RLX 150cc, RLX 100cc and 50cc quad bikes over a disused quarry site. Prices start at around £25.
7. High Ropes, Devon. Close to Dartmoor National Park, the Tavistock high ropes course is another excuse to head to the west country for a weekend. The canopy-based activities offer challenges for different ages and levels of fitness, and start at £26.
8. Scuba-diving, Buckinghamshire. Scuba diving is a sport that is becoming more accessible and popular, particularly with the over 40s. And dipping a toe into the sport isn’t expensive. Less than £30 will be needed for an introductory session.
9. Ballooning, Lake District. William Wordsworth – one of the Lake District’s most famous sons – could have said: ‘I wandered lonely as a balloon.’ Surely, there can’t be a better way to view some of the UK’s finest scenery than perched in a balloon a few thousand feet in the air. Just imagine the poetry he may have come up with as he floated on high o’er vales and hills. Prices are around the £200 mark.
10. Off-road karting, Surrey. Just a short drive from the M25 is an off-road karting circuit without any traffic cones in sight. For between £80 and £90, you can rip up the mud and blow away all the memories of weekdays stuck on the M25. Proper driving that you can only dream about in the south east of England.
TV viewers who watched former England cricketer Freddie Flintoff’s ITV4 show Freddie Flintoff Versus the World saw the birth of a new extreme sport – paintball and paragliding. Two extreme sports combined into one.
The former England all-rounder battled it out in the airspace in South America with ex-England cricketing colleague Darren Gough, although Freddie came off second best as he damaged his paintball gun when taking off in the paraglider. Which just goes to show there’ll be a raft of new techniques to master if it takes off over here.
Click here for paintball or here for paragliding. As yet there’s no plans to combine the sports in the UK – if that changes, we’ll let you know as soon as we do! If you can come up with a name for the new sport Adrenamag will send you some extreme sports vouchers.
According to Google, airsoft is set to perform a St Valentine’s Day massacre on the Internet as it tops the poll as the most searched for shooting activity term.
Airsoft, which uses replica guns firing plastic balls, is outgunning activities such as paintball, laser quest and clay pigeon shooting in online searches. A staggering 2.7 million people searched for airsoft in January, compared to just 1.8 million for the perennial favourite paintball. Airsoft originated in Japan in the late 1970s as the Far Eastern answer to paintball. So what is the big attraction? And why is airsoft blasting away the competition?
Gary, 20, a student from Sheffield, who recently started taking part in combat games of airsoft, says: ‘It’s the authentic feel of military combat that turns people on.’ Primary school teacher Sally, 27, has been taking part in airsoft games for a couple of years. ‘I started playing when my boyfriend’s company organised a corporate airsoft day, and just loved it,’ she said. ‘It’s a team sport which involves tactics and working together to beat the opponent. So it is a mental as well as a physical challenge.’
One big difference between paintball and airsoft is there’s no paint marks when a person is shot, so honesty is the only policy for these gun fighters. Gary believes it is part of the attraction of the sport. ‘It’s a bit like golf, it’s easy to cheat, but in my experience people are very honest. It’s considered really bad form to argue if you’ve been shot,’ he says.
The hot debate within airsoft is over the control of the replica guns. The UK Airsoft Sites Governing Body (UKASGB) which represents airsoft sites and is supported by Sport England, argues for controls on the use of replica guns rather than a ban. The UK Home Office currently classifies airsoft guns as Replica Imitation Firearms (RIFs), which restricts their use to exempted activities such as combat games. So firing airsoft guns at a site is legal but don’t carry them while you are in the supermarket. If you want to find out why is airsoft is out firing other sports, click here.
10 facts to fire-off about Airsoft
1. Airsoft guns fire 6mm plastic bullets at speeds between 100 and 328 feet per second
2. Airsoft replica guns are normally lighter than normal guns and cannot be turned into real firearms.
3. Airsoft started as the Japanese answer to paintball.
4. The power of airsoft guns is limited in the UK to 328 feet per second, which is the equivalent to flicking your skin with a finger, when fired from a safe distance.
5. Airsoft dealers currently operate a voluntary ban on the sale of airsoft guns to under 18s
6. Airsoft sites normally have a minimum age restriction of 12, under 16s need to be signed for by a parent or guardian
7. The plastic balls fired by airsoft guns are biodegradable.
8. The three types of airsoft gun are spring, electric and gas operated – all using compressed air
The images in the above video appear to have offended a lot of people. (Not in the Adrenamag editorial office.)But like many people we have been known to eat too many mince pies and Christmas pudding over the festive period, and before we book our next bungee jumps, we know we’ll need to plan to lose a few pounds. Click here if you aim to do a bungee jump in 2011 or want to buy a bungee jump voucher for someone. (Just don’t show them the video.)
