Interquadding.

Greetings and salutations!

In my last blog (dated last Sunday), I ended with a promise to follow up that blog with a new one the very next day. Whoops.

I'd just come back off of a 3-day stint with the company's sales manager touring Scotland's lesser-known hotspots for stag and hen parties, and was very much caught up in the whole experience. I'd gone out and enjoyed myself immensely, and then got to write a blog and say 'tits' more times than an 80's porn flick. I was very much living the dream...

The Thursday in Inverness however, was far less dreamy!

We'd been to see a few places in Aberdeen in the morning (a surprisingly nice city, even in the daylight!) to do with karting, clay pigeon shooting and paintball. There was even one location that offered 'axe throwing' as an activity. Quick to reassure me; the guy swore blind that axe throwing was in fact one of their safest activities and I had to wonder whether the guy had actually been invited out to a stag weekend before. There are very few of my mates I'd trust to do that when sober - let alone on a stag weekend! Alcohol and projectile weapons - I don't care how blunt the axe is... that's just a bad idea.

Despite falling asleep a dozen times or so in the car - great way to create a first impression by the way - driving around, I actually enjoyed myself on the Thursday. We went to visit some adventure farm just outside of Inverness and the chap that ran the show there seemed to be the nicest guy in the entire world. He introduced me to something he refers to as 'speed paintballing' - imagine normal paintball, but getting shot more. As the name suggests it's faster paced, less places to hide - but you really do get to shoot the shit out of anyone and everyone! You get the same satisfaction from speed paintball in the short time you're playing than you would a full day of normal paintball, but with this you'd have time to do other things as well. Unfortunately, it was the 'other things' that I managed to embarrass myself on...

We got a nice tour of the place; somewhere to eat, somewhere for hens to do pottery and clay painting and stuff (great for creating memorabilia, and there's t-shirt painting if you're wanting to go out in Inverness for the night wearing equally groovy home-made t-shirts), archery, miniquads and bizarrely an exotic pets 'zoo'. And then he offered to show us the quad course. It seemed like such an innocent offer...

Turns out that when he said he'd "show us the course", he meant "take you round it". And by "take you round it", he meant "you're going to have to use a quad bike". Great. I had my nice black jeans on, some smart shoes and a white shirt. I'd spent the day thinking 'Man, if only there was some way I could get myself covered in mud', so imagine my delight when I was handed a helmet and told "You may want to put your feet up when the water gets more than a foot deep". Turns out that Grant (SM) owns his own quad bike and is quite used to taking one of these beasts out for a spin. I, on the other hand, was a total rookie.

There's nothing more reaffirming as a man than to have some other guy have to come across and start your engine for you. And then to select your gear. And then explain the accellerate/brake system. Twice. And then give you a push start. And then have to pull you away from a big mound of dirt you've just crashed into.

All said and done though, I managed not to fall off the entire way round (even if it was the 'beginner' course) and the experience was fantastic. I hardly got covered in any mud at all despite the water being nearly up to my ass at one point in the course, and getting stuck on a couple of occassions. The andrenaline rush was mind blowing and the sheer brilliance of this terrain was breathtaking.

I'm not about to say I'm an instant addict, but I'll definitely try quad biking again at some point when I'm perhaps a little better prepared, and can go round the full course. Or even try a different course. Inverness is a great night out and I can totally see why it's becoming so popular with the stag and hen weekend groups - especially with Aviemore just down the road - but it's a little far to go for an hour quad session when there are so many places closer to Bonnie Dundee I intend to scout!

Until next time!

-Kenny