Cheddar Gorge in the Mendip Hills, near Cheddar, Somerset is where climber Chris Bonington was the first to scale the Coronation Street route in 1965. There are around 350 officially graded climbing routes on the 27 cliffs that make up Cheddar Gorge. The climbing routes are open to climbers between 1 October and 15 March each year (so sadly Pete couldn’t don his climbing gear this time) and each is named and included in the British Mountaineering Council guidebook.

While the majority of the climbs are “trad” or “traditional”, which means that the leader places protection as they ascend, there are also some “sport” routes where bolts are left in place. There is a plaque to mark the route that Chris took and named after the popular television soap.

Interested in climbing and abseiling?

You could start out by practicing on the climbing wall at Cobnor Activities Centre, which is due to be resurfaced and upgraded with an overhang later this year. Cobnor’s climbing wall is ideal for climbers of all levels looking to further their rock climbing and abseiling skills. Our qualified instructor will fit you out with a harness and hat. He will then show how to belay – this is where a climber is attached to a rope and their partner on the ground lets their rope in and out enabling them to climb safely.

Do you want to tackle the climbing wall at Cobnor?

This is just one of the outdoor activities included in our Multi-Activity Weeks for 8-13 year olds that take place each summer. Find out dates and other info here.

Here are some photos of a climber just to the right of Cheddar Gorge’s Coronation Street:

Pumpkin Party hosts Mark and Janet had got in loads of pumpkins along with spooky stencils and crafty utensils to make creating the perfect pumpkin lanterns possible. Everyone who came along chose a stencil, which included a witch’s face, bats, cats and a pirate’s ship. They then scooped out the pumpkin flesh, traced the outline of their image and cut into the pumpkin with tiny knives and hacksaws.

As each carver finished their pumpkin, a tea light was placed inside so we could all see the full spooky effect of the lantern’s glow. We then went out to the driveway where we displayed the finished lanterns in an open horse box so that they could be admired by passersby.

Once everyone had exhausted their creativity it was time to replenish with some homemade pumpkin and butternut squash soup and spicy sausages with caramelised onions and chips. These delights were followed by doughnuts, which lead to the obligatory eat-a-doughnut-without-licking-your-lips competition. Do you now see why we have to do all those outdoor activities?

However, even after all that grub there was still one pumpkin carver hard at it. Pete Alner decided to choose the most complex of designs consisting of Happy Halloween written in calligraphy coming out of a willowy tree. Pete gets ten out of ten for effort but nil pointes for socialising; we’ve never seen that level of concentration from him!

Here are some of the pumpkin lanterns created by the Cobnor Activities Centre crew:

This week some of the Cobnor Activities Centre team thought they’d exchange the outdoor activities for some indoor activities and took to the Gosport karting track for some fun-fuelled team building. 

The Cobnor karting challenge was organised by Pete Alner who signed up two teams that were interested in taking on 450 metres of long straights and wide bends as well as a pretty hairy flyover bridge in 200cc go karts. The teams were Silver Streaks (Pete Alner, Andy Hall, Pete Davis and Paul McTaggart) and Qsaders (Quintin ‘Q’ MacMorland, Tom Meyer, Mike Goodborne and Bryn Lloyd Jones).

After some initial warm-up laps to get the boys used to their karts, Pete A and Tom Meyer took their places on the grid to begin the race for their teams. Each team member got 15-20 minutes zipping around the track and then pulled in to the pit for a speedy driver changeover.

There was some really competitive driving between Pete A and Q and, although the Qsaders finished a sad second to last and the Silver Streaks took a lame last place, a good time was had by all. Pete A achieved the fasted time of 30.68 seconds for his team and Bryn was a mere 300^th of a second behind him. It seems Pete A did receive a small payoff for his weeks of studying the track online, even if Gosport had reversed it since his last visit! The studious team captain of the Silver Streaks had a few words he wanted to share on the karting experience:

“This was a great thing for our staff to take part in as we’re the ones usually delivering team building sessions! I wouldn’t call it relaxing, far from it. It was exciting and challenging and I think most of us came away aching. However, it was good for us to do something as a team outside of work.”

Find out more about the outdoor activities offered by Cobnor Activities Centre here.

The Royal Observatory is home of the Prime Meridian of the World and of Greenwich Mean Time, both essential to planning and coordinating sailing trips. Here Pete got to learn more about longitude, latitude and how sailors used to navigate with the stars. He saw the world famous Meridian Line; the red Time Ball on top of Flamsteed house, one of the world’s earliest public time signals that still falls at 13.00 every day; the 28-inch refracting telescope, the largest of its kind in the UK; a meteorite that is over 4.5 million years old and John Harrison’s invention of a timekeeper that could withstand the unstable motions of sea going vessels. Pete also attended two planetarium shows: Secrets of the Sun and Visions of Saturn.

Secrets of the Sun involved a look at the role the sun plays in the life of our solar system. From the nuclear forces churning at the heart of the sun to the mass ejections of solar material in to surrounding space, experiencing the power of the sun and its impact on the planets and ultimately life on Earth. The show also revealed the life cycle of the sun itself, going back to its beginnings and moving forward in time to its eventual death. This was accompanied by Solar Story, an exhibition of striking images that help us to understand the nature of our closest star and its effects on Earth.

Visions of Saturn followed the Cassini spacecraft by taking a virtual trip to Saturn and discovering the amazing secrets of its clouds, rings and moons. This was a fascinating visual spectacular, which actually made you feel like you were on Saturn and gave insight into the planet that has been so easily valuable from the South Coast just lately.

Then after a spot of lunch it was off to the National Maritime Museum where the highlights included antique sea vessels to modern maritime marvels. On the ground floor Pete enjoyed the exquisitely-gilded Prince Frederick’s barge, built for King George II’s eldest son and used for royal occasions on the Thames until 1846 as well as Miss Britain III, the first single-engine powerboat to exceed 100mph on open water and for several years remained the fastest in the world.

There was even a touch of interactivity to be enjoyed, such as taking control of the Bridge Gallery where it was possible to steer a ship into port using a state-of-the-art simulator. But the queues were quite lengthy and Pete was more than satisfied with having real boats to steer around Chichester Harbour when he returned home.

Pete says, “The Royal Observatory and the National Maritime Museum make a great family day out and I could see a number of the people who attend sailing courses and activity camps at Cobnor Activities Centre really appreciating the fun activities and educational resources available there.”