Stories of Success
~ Emilie’s GoApe Adventure ~
We have a lot of fun here at GoGet and we also have a lot to shout about. Day in, day out, no matter what, our fantastic clients do something incredible that inspires each and every member of the team. We're excited to share some of these special moments with you.
Written by Katy - February 2021
I love a high ropes course. Always have. As a child, any excuse to harness up and clamber up something tall and wobbly and I was there. Now I get to do it as part of my job. Sometimes I can’t quite believe I got so lucky!
What I love even more is supporting our GoGet Active clients on high ropes courses. It can often be difficult to predict how someone with additional needs will react the first time you take them up into the trees, so it always makes for an interesting session. Some people crack on as if they have been waiting all their life for the opportunity, some take a little more encouragement, but there’s always a sense of achievement at the end of it all. Almost equally fun, in my opinion, is telling the individual’s parents or carers that we’re heading out to a high ropes course. The range of surprise, skepticism, excitement, and the occasional ‘oh you wouldn’t get me up there!’ make the resulting triumph even more satisfying.
The young lady I would like to tell you about is one of those people who, some might say, was not the obvious choice for a high ropes session. Emilie is a woman who likes to makes herself known. And why wouldn’t she? She’s fabulous. She’s funny, she’s fashionable, she’s an icon in every sense of the word. She also has a deep (and I would argue almost artistic) appreciation for drama, and when it comes to bringing drama to a situation, she is a master of the craft.
Drama aside, however, Emilie is also deceptively adventurous and fiercely determined, so pretty much from the start of our getting to know her, I have nurtured a secret ambition to get her on a zip line.
So we turned to our awesome friends at GoApe Dalby. It’s worth taking a little time out here from singing Emilie’s praises to give these guys a little plug. We love working with the team at GoApe Dalby. They are fantastic on so many levels. Nick and his team go above and beyond to do what they can to make their course accessible for everyone. They have a wonderful appreciation of the fact that everyone’s needs are different and that with the odd adjustment here and there, people of all abilities can master the treetops. Their understanding and willingness to adapt mean that we can feel confident supporting our clients in a more challenging setting, and we’d recommend that anyone who might be wondering whether someone they love can manage GoApe give them a call. You might be surprised!
Plugging over, back to Emilie. We decided to start Emilie off on the Treetop Adventure course. This course is a little less physically demanding than the full scale Treetop Challenge, so it’s a great starting point for us the first time we introduce someone to the joys of GoApe. Step one was getting into our harnesses. Emilie took to her harness no trouble, which really we should have expected given that she is a natural when it comes to accessorising. Step two was the safety briefing. Emilie’s enthusiasm was already starting to show at this point, and we had to regularly remind her to step back as she frequently showed signs of wanting to attach herself to the practice course while our GoApe guide was still demonstrating! We took that as a good sign and set off to start the course.
I’ll be honest, our time on the course wasn’t drama free. But then, nobody expected that. In fact, I personally would have been disappointed not to get a little bit of drama. We made a lot of noise. Emilie did a first class job of making sure that everybody in the forest knew that she was there and that she was attempting something noteworthy. Particularly difficult aspects of the course were greeted with assertive shouts of contempt and conquered with triumphant flourishes. Emilie took on the challenge with the determination we have come to expect from her. We were slow at first, but with each obstacle tackled her confidence grew, until before long she was striding over swing bridges like they were cracks in the pavement.
Then for the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The zip line. Folks, settle in.
By far the hardest part of a zip line, at least if you’re not too fussy about making a dignified landing, is the first bit. Essentially you have to step off a ledge, knowing that there is no ground beneath you and only two (suddenly very thin and flimsy looking) pieces of cord holding you up. No matter how brave you may be and how comfortable with heights you may think you are, the first time is a big deal. Once you’re on it, you’re laughing. It’s just a case of sitting back and enjoying the spectacular views. But that first step into the unknown takes some doing. We knew that it was a big ask. We knew that Emilie might decide it wasn’t for her. But we also knew that there was absolutely no way that we weren’t going to give her the chance to try it.
Emilie approached the ledge. She processed what we were asking her to do. She screamed.
To clarify, we’d expected that. It’s fair to say that the other occupants of Dalby Forest had not.
The GoApe team looked on anxiously, ready to spring into action should a rescue operation be required. Below us, a group of people receiving their safety briefing stopped what they were doing and looked up in horror, some of them clearly rethinking their decision to take part. The forest held its breath. Apart from Emilie. She kept on with the screaming.
It felt like Emilie spent a long time at the top of that platform. Occasionally she took breaks from the screaming to take some deep breaths or do some counting. With each minute that went by, the zip line dream seemed to get further and further away, and more and more members of the safety briefing looked to be having second thoughts about their choices.
And then she went. One minute she was screaming, the next she was, well, still screaming, but also soaring through the air, legs whirling, all eyes on her. We were celebrating, the members of the safety briefing were applauding and cheering, and Emilie was gracefully coming into land as if she took on zip lines all the time.
So what do you do after championing over your first ever zip line? Well you do it again. This time there was no hesitation. Emilie was up and off the ledge almost before we’d managed to get the camera ready. She rose to the challenge in every way, with all the style, grace and of course drama, we could possibly have hoped for.
And what’s next, I hear you ask? Well she may have taken on Treetop Adventure, but she still has Treetop Challenge to master. Tougher obstacles, higher platforms, and even bigger zip wires to face up to. My view? I think she’s up to it.
