High wire fun at Lakeside Adventure Park

Lakeside Adventure Park is unique: there is nowhere quite like it in Uganda. The park offers state-of-the-art adventure and climbing activities, with a highly professional support team in a peaceful setting next to the lake. It’s brilliant fun too – as Kampala House Harriers were to discover …

Flying Hashers! High wire fun at Lakeside Adventure Park, a great day out from Kampala

Activities available at Lakeside Adventure Park include an assault course, crate-building exercise for team building fun, high wire – rope course – activities on two different levels, volleyball on the beach and Uganda’s highest climbing wall. It’s perfect for a day out from Kampala. It caters very well for groups.

Recently, twenty of us took the Lakeside Adventure Park boat across from Ggaba. The boat can take you directly from Ggaba’s KK Beach to Lakeside (45 minute boat journey). We opted to take the shorter boat crossing to Bole, from Beach House Event Gardens (a nice little local bar behind Ggaba).

Twenty Hash House Harriers jumped on the boat from Ggaba.’Nagawa’s Birthday Hash’ was sponsored by Diary of a Muzungu

We then jumped on boda bodas for a ten minute journey through the Bush to Lakeside. Either way, it’s a very easy journey to Lakeside. (You can even drive there via Mukono)). Once you’re over on the other side, you feel like you’re on an island – you can hardly imagine Kampala is so close.

On a boda boda from Bole to Lakeside Adventure Park – just one of the ways to get there

After a quick look around Lakeside’s facilities, it was time for our reason for being there: the Hash run! What a beautiful part of the world. Ahhhh… I feel so relaxed just remembering the place. I don’t remember passing even one car on our hour-long run. Even boda bodas are few and far between.

There was one very important boda boda on our run, of course: the one carrying the beer for the three beer stops! My favourite beer stop: guess who was waiting for Nagawa? Up in the trees were three Nkima! (Red-tailed Monkeys – the totem for the Nkima clan that Nagawa belongs to).

The Muzungu Nagawa and Nkima, the Red Tailed Monkey. Me and my totem, as painted by the artist Taga www.mytotem.co.ug

I enjoyed my moments watching the monkeys while I waited for the (FRBs) Front Running Bastards to appear from the bushes…

I was quite happy when Kenyan Hasher ‘Golddigga’ took my place on the beer-stop boda – it wasn’t the comfiest of rides!

Boda driver + de Muzungu + beer crate on one boda boda driving over bumpy marram tracks isn’t the most comfortable ride. I was quite happy when Kenyan Hasher ‘Golddigga’ decided that her injured leg needed a rest and she took my place on the beer-stop boda.

Back at Lakeside Adventure Park, the ‘high wire’ ropes course activity operates on two levels.

Our instructor was JB. Feet still firmly on the ground, JB instructed everyone on how to use the safety equipment. No time for fooling around; everyone had to listen in carefully. The health and safety briefing is very important. Used properly, everyone was safe using the equipment. Spectators aren’t allowed to stand underneath any of the high wire activities, either. It was very tempting to stand right underneath someone to take a photo, but I resisted. I didn’t want JB to shout at me!

Unusually attentive Hashers! JB gave everyone a a good safety briefing

The high wire activities combine ropes and pulleys, climbing walls, sections that you sit on and navigate using your upper body. It requires coordination, balance and concentration.

Taking a break between sections of the high wire ropes course at Lakeside Adventure Park

Some of the Hashers opted to continue to the second higher level. The whole activity is quite intense. After a few initial giggles, everyone quietened down. I could sense how people were concentrating.

Machinery hauls himself across a section of the ropes course

Only a couple of people managed the last section; to concentrate hard and maintain that muscle control for a whole hour has to be very demanding. (Note: de Muzungu was too busy taking photos – and recovering from the night before’s birthday celebrations  – to participate!)

Imagine organising your colleagues into two teams and racing each other over an assault course? This is what we did on Sunday morning.

We cheered each other on as we scrambled over wooden poles, jumped, climbed, run, swung and raced on our hands and knees over, under and around various wooden obstacles. Brilliant!

Check out more photos of the Lakeside Adventure Park week-end on the Diary of a Muzungu Facebook page.

Assault course at Lakeside Adventure Park. Note de Muzungu‘s full concentration!

As a last bit of fun to end the day, JB split us up into teams and gave us a scenario in which we had to build a temporary shelter from the rain. He gave us 15 minutes.

Fourteen minutes later, feeling proud of our tipi tent of branches and leaves, our team of five sat inside it.

“But will it be rainproof?” He asked us. “Yeah, yeah”” we all shouted, confidently.

“Are you sure?”

A bucket of water appeared from nowhere, permeating the branches and soaking everyone in our shelter.

“Okay, JB, you win!” We laughed, jumping up from the ground.

Clare and I outside our hastily built tipi – before we had the bucket of water chucked at us!

A lot of fun and just one of the teambuilding exercises put together for corporates, schools or just a private party like ours.

We had a brilliant time at Lakeside Adventure Park, from start to finish. The booking process was easy and the team made sure we had everything we wanted. Twenty is quite a small group number; Lakeside can accommodate 55 people (or a few more, with tents) and is a popular venue for corporate and teambuilding events. The whole facility is very well organized. A new kitchen and conference room are being constructed as I write. The dormitory accommodation is excellent. There are two big modern dormitories, one male and one female, each with their own hot showers and toilets. Everyone in our group said what a fantastic time they had.

You don’t actually have to be fit for a lot of these activities, you just have to be up for an adventure! Don’t be too concerned if people laugh at your expense. You will soon be laughing at them too!

For more information, visit Lakeside Adventure Park’s website or contact the Muzungu. We can’t wait to revisit  next year. So many Hashers are complaining that they missed out on this unique weekend – let’s hope Lakeside will have us again!

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