Euro 2012 is really heating up now – we’ve reached the quarter final stages and there’s really no telling what will happen. Of course, with all this football on the telly, a lot of us have spent more time indoors watching the action than being active ourselves.
There’s only 10 days left until the Euro 2012 final, after which all this football fever is over for the summer – and with the promise of a little more sunshine in July and August than we’ve seen in the last few months, what better excuse to get out there and get active? Here are our top 5 picks of outdoor adventures, the perfect remedy for too much time spent inside, watching other people being active!
Land Yachting
Land yachting combines the best bits of two amazing sports – the freedom and elegance of sailing, and the unmistakable rush that comes with going fast, in any vehicle. As extreme as land yachting is, it’s also fully accessible and surprisingly easy to get the hang of. Harness the power of the wind (which, luckily, is in plentiful supply in the UK!) on these fuel-less beach-buggies, and within a few very enjoyable hours you can progress from complete beginner to confident speed-freak.
Canyoning in the UK is rugged, rough and ready, and offers a rejuvinating taste of the great outdoors. A canyoning experience is extreme, but it’s also extremely good fun – think ‘127 Hours’ without all that nasty arm business… The fantastic locations around the UK are punctuated with rock-slides, whitewater rapid swims, scrambles, jumps, and a ‘via ferrata’ (cable traverse) for your canyoning pleasure! Highly trained and experienced guides are on hand at all times to ensure everyone’s enjoyment and safety, and the experiences are tailored to each individual group – nobody is made to do anything they are not comfortable with, and everyone is free to test themselves in the utmost safety.
For those not too familiar with the sport, kitesurfing (also called kiteboarding) is the perfect example of how extreme sports grow and evolve. It incorporates the best aspects of surfing, windsurfing, paragliding, and wakeboarding, and allows for building serious speed and getting SERIOUS air! It’s like surfing, but you get to fly. It’s like parachuting, but you get to launch as well as land. It’s like wakeboarding, but you don’t need a speedboat. It’s basically the perfect mash-up of the best bits of lots of already-established extreme sports. What more could you ask for?
Rock climbing is a supremely rewarding pursuit – essentially, it is man vs nature in one of it’s purest forms, a wonderful solo sport that allows climbers forget about everything but the task at hand – getting to the top of the rock. There is something meditative about this, and the sport is as mentally beneficial as it is physically demanding. On top of all this, it can be combined with abseiling, making descents incredibly good fun – after all, what goes up must come down…
For unbeatable invigoration and lots of fun, whitewater rafting is the way to go. This is fantastic as a group activity and will probably blow away cobwebs you didn’t even know were there! There are a number of fantastic whitewater rafting locations throughout the UK, with rapids that are intense enough to get the adrenaline pumping, but still safely navigable!
