Try this. Adrenalin Quarry. It's - you guessed it - a quarry full of water, converted into a small-scale adventure park. Just off the double carriageway near Liskeard (Menheniot, actually). You take the left/right turn, then it's on the left after maybe half a mile. Long track full of potholes, car park, pay your money in the little wooden hut (cheaper than I expected), then your two eleven-year-old companions (and you, if you're crazy enough) get to jump off a platform and slide down the zipwire over the water.
Over to one side is the big swing, voted more frightening (in a good way, apparently) than the zipwire, and if you're queuing for the said zipwire, you can see people lower down, in crash helmets, jumping off a sheer cliff into the water, then climbing up the cliff again. People go down the zipwire with cameras, and later, I'm going to take a wander round youtube. Very small children can go down the zipwire, but there can be a change of mind when they're hooked up and look down the wire for the first time.
The whole thing is run by amiable twentysomethings, the kind of people who, in another Summer, would be sitting around the lifeguard's four-by-four on a flat surfing beach. Amiable, relaxed, very focused on the key skill of checking that safety harnesses are fixed correctly. If your eleven-year-olds have worked up a hunger, turn westbound onto the double carriageway, come off just after the industrial estate and double back to it. Very satisfactory bacon sandwiches at the, er, farm shop (a caravan with tables in its own fenced-off area) outside Mole Valley Farmers. Easy enough getting back to the big road in either direction.
That's it. A happy day.
Over to one side is the big swing, voted more frightening (in a good way, apparently) than the zipwire, and if you're queuing for the said zipwire, you can see people lower down, in crash helmets, jumping off a sheer cliff into the water, then climbing up the cliff again. People go down the zipwire with cameras, and later, I'm going to take a wander round youtube. Very small children can go down the zipwire, but there can be a change of mind when they're hooked up and look down the wire for the first time.
The whole thing is run by amiable twentysomethings, the kind of people who, in another Summer, would be sitting around the lifeguard's four-by-four on a flat surfing beach. Amiable, relaxed, very focused on the key skill of checking that safety harnesses are fixed correctly. If your eleven-year-olds have worked up a hunger, turn westbound onto the double carriageway, come off just after the industrial estate and double back to it. Very satisfactory bacon sandwiches at the, er, farm shop (a caravan with tables in its own fenced-off area) outside Mole Valley Farmers. Easy enough getting back to the big road in either direction.
That's it. A happy day.