Latest Newsletter - Issue 11

Van Walt go wild in Wales

This time of year the following conversation must be had in offices around the country: “What do you fancy doing for Christmas?”

Like everywhere else: “Good food, good wine … a party?” or “An M&S voucher and bottle of bubbly ….” or “Can’t we go back to the same place as we went last year?” … were just a few of the responses in Haslemere.

But no – Van Walt like to do things differently – that’s why we ended up in Wales, gorge walking and white-water rafting!

For those in the ‘know’, I’m sure you’ll be impressed! If, like most of us at Van Walt (everyone over 40), you are an adventure sport virgin - you should be impressed because extreme it was, wet it was, cold it was - but fantastic fun!

We were very lucky with the weather – glorious sunshine but when you’re in a rocky river gorge, in a wetsuit, wearing a helmet and being asked to launch yourself off a 12 foot drop into a pool of freezing water just a few feet in diameter – you forget to look at the weather! And this was our warm up, billed as the ‘easy bit’ before we hit the rapids!

Bearing in mind this was our Christmas ‘party’, it did prove to be fun as well as a great exercise in team building. There’s no place to hide in a wetsuit and not everyone wanted to be at the front of the queue when it came to some of the jumps or underwater swims into tight spaces where, the not so agile of us, almost needed a winch to get out! But everyone did it, there were no ‘count me outs’ and, in comparison to the gorge walking, white-water rafting was a breeze.

It was a weekend to remember and everyone in the team would jump at the opportunity to do it again. But our adventure didn’t end after the water sports. Unfortunately the hire van developed a fault so we ended up coming home on the back of a tow truck …. next year ‘turkey and temparillo’ at the pub.