Anyone from Cornwall?
Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:58 pm
You're in the Oak Room, sir
It's the UK's most unusual B&B: a treetop hammock suspended 50 feet above the Cornish countryside. A nervous Nicholas Roe checks in
Sunday April 23, 2006
The Observer
Like a seaside landlady directing me to the dodgiest room in the house, Bethany Stock pointed to the upper branches of a gigantic oak at the edge of a field in Cornwall. 'That's where you'll be sleeping,' she said. 'Can you see?'
I could. Wasn't sure I wanted to, but I certainly could. Strapped up high between gnarled branches that jutted from the main trunk at a rakish angle, a full 50 feet above the ground, my bed for the night trembled in the breeze. You know those holiday moments when you review what you've booked and think, 'I chose this?' That's the thought that passed through my mind as I prepared to experience one of the most radical, evocative and downright uncomfortable nights of my life.
For £140 to £200, the Mighty Oak Tree Climbing Company, run by Bethany and Alan Stock, provides an al fresco dinner at tree-stump level, then up you climb by rope to spend a night in a hammock - or 'treeboat' - amid the leaves and wind and loneliness. In the morning, your breakfast is cooked for you in the treetops.
Ecolodges around the world are competing to boast the greenest credentials, but surely this - a tree - is the ultimate. Here in this wood on the Boconnoc Estate near Lostwithiel, I peered up and wondered whether, from up there, that little hammock felt as high as it looked from down here on the grass and sheep poo. I would find out soon.
First Alan, who is a qualified tree surgeon, literally showed me the ropes, strapping a groin-crushing safety harness to my midriff and telling me about tree-climbing using slip-knots and stirrups. 'It's the calm and the peace up there that people want,' he explained before showing me a scar caused by a chain-saw accident seven weeks ago, which nearly took his arm off. Gulp.
The wind blew. I practised climbing, enjoying myself no end while Beth made dinner of barbecued lamb-kebabs (was it my imagination or were the sheep in the surrounding field eyeing us balefully as we tucked into their brethren?). Then as the moon rose, it was finally time to climb - quite literally - into bed.
Gordon.
It's the UK's most unusual B&B: a treetop hammock suspended 50 feet above the Cornish countryside. A nervous Nicholas Roe checks in
Sunday April 23, 2006
The Observer
Like a seaside landlady directing me to the dodgiest room in the house, Bethany Stock pointed to the upper branches of a gigantic oak at the edge of a field in Cornwall. 'That's where you'll be sleeping,' she said. 'Can you see?'
I could. Wasn't sure I wanted to, but I certainly could. Strapped up high between gnarled branches that jutted from the main trunk at a rakish angle, a full 50 feet above the ground, my bed for the night trembled in the breeze. You know those holiday moments when you review what you've booked and think, 'I chose this?' That's the thought that passed through my mind as I prepared to experience one of the most radical, evocative and downright uncomfortable nights of my life.
For £140 to £200, the Mighty Oak Tree Climbing Company, run by Bethany and Alan Stock, provides an al fresco dinner at tree-stump level, then up you climb by rope to spend a night in a hammock - or 'treeboat' - amid the leaves and wind and loneliness. In the morning, your breakfast is cooked for you in the treetops.
Ecolodges around the world are competing to boast the greenest credentials, but surely this - a tree - is the ultimate. Here in this wood on the Boconnoc Estate near Lostwithiel, I peered up and wondered whether, from up there, that little hammock felt as high as it looked from down here on the grass and sheep poo. I would find out soon.
First Alan, who is a qualified tree surgeon, literally showed me the ropes, strapping a groin-crushing safety harness to my midriff and telling me about tree-climbing using slip-knots and stirrups. 'It's the calm and the peace up there that people want,' he explained before showing me a scar caused by a chain-saw accident seven weeks ago, which nearly took his arm off. Gulp.
The wind blew. I practised climbing, enjoying myself no end while Beth made dinner of barbecued lamb-kebabs (was it my imagination or were the sheep in the surrounding field eyeing us balefully as we tucked into their brethren?). Then as the moon rose, it was finally time to climb - quite literally - into bed.
Gordon.
