The Bear Grylls Adventure

People are zip-lining from a Chinook. There's a crashed plane balanced precariously in a tree and we're hearing reports of tarantulas. We're just 15 minutes outside of Birmingham and we're about to plunge, cage-free, into a tank full of sharks. Welcome to The Bear Grylls Adventure.

So WTF? Well, Edward Michael Grylls — or "Bear" to you and me — has essentially created an adventure park between the NEC and Resorts World full of activities designed to test you, physically and mentally, and presumably make a stack of cash. Zip, leap, fly, dive, climb, get a little bit shouted at, then go down a really aggressive slide (where we sustained our only lasting injury of the trip), before eating a pizza with scorpions on it  — you zany nutter, you. Whatever big ticket activities you ultimately select (like the high ropes, pictured — the highest in Europe!), the experience starts at basecamp (£20), which includes the hardest escape room we've ever been in, an ace archery session with happily cheesy photo opp (see top), a faintly terrifying maze complete with creepies, crawlies and a healthy dose of claustrophobia just in case you're starting to get too comfortable.

 But the out-and-out winner for us was the (apparently) Marines-grade assault course, which we only needed to be pushed, pulled, or rolled over a few times by our obliging instructor: it was challenging without being impossible, the feel-good spot. If you don't like participation, or the idea of Bear telling you to "NEVER, GIVE, UP" in a growling voice by the medium of motivational videos, basecamp might start to grate on you. And without giving too much away, there's definitely room for improvement around the snake room, the basically impossible escape rooms and the flow of the experience generally. But at £20, this bizarre, unique and, at times brilliant, experience being just down the road means probably only a fairly miserable person wouldn't give it a whirl.

Having graduated basecamp, it was time for what all the staff gleefully refer to as our "hero" activity, for which we somehow ended up in a tank, in full scuba gear splashing around with 14 sharks, pufferfish, a gang of rays and all sorts of aquaticness. LOOK! That's us (above) casually strolling through a tank like it's summer in Cannon Hill. If you haven't dived before, the experience is pretty incredible, with proper PADI-grade instruction before you get friendly with Jaws, Nemo & Co. Under the sea, shark-nerves quickly turned to wonderment and an unexpected sense of calm. The rays were super friendly and the sharks, quite frankly, couldn't have given less of a sh*t. The rest of the fish were just beautiful and, taken from aquariums, more interested than phased by us. Though not cheap (it's £100 to dive, including basecamp), if you've ever had any sort of aspiration to take up diving, this little taster — with excellent, patient (sorry, Brian!) tuition — is a neat way to start. Diving with sharks in one of the most landlocked cities in the UK? Nice move, Bear. Real nice. More (from the MAN, HIM, SELF)