How did it all begin?

The origins of Go Ape lie in France. Back in 2001, Tris and Becs Mayhew were on holiday in the Auvergne with their six-month old baby and came across a French family swinging through the trees. From the looks on their faces, it was clear both the kids and their parents were having the time of their lives.

Already thinking about stepping off the corporate ladder, Tris and Becs saw an opportunity to start a business moulded by their own values. So they seized the moment, quit their London jobs and began the Go Ape adventure.

Eight years and 22 courses later, they’ve built one of the fastest growing companies in the country and have plans to take the Go Ape message all over the UK and beyond.

What’s the Go Ape vision?

It’s pretty simple really – we want to create adventure and encourage everyone to live life more adventurously. It’s so much more fun that way.

And our values?

We’re doing our bit to keep the adventure in adventure. We believe that zero risk equals zero development and we’re always looking to challenge people, to surprise and excite them.

We’re also passionate about motivating people to believe in themselves – to swap ‘I can’t’ for ‘I can’. Great news is that a lot of our customers are finding this to be true of their Go Ape experience.

It’s important to us to be socially and environmentally responsible and create worthwhile and well rewarded careers for our employees.

In short, we just want to do the right thing. Sounds a bit worthy, we know. But we really mean it.

Do we have a mission?

Yes. From our Suffolk base we’re plotting ways to get the whole world swinging through the trees. Well, we’d like at least to be the best high-wire adventure company on the planet.

So what’s the plan?

We get a lot of calls from people up and down the country asking us to build a course near them. We’re doing what we can and plan to grow to 40 courses by 2012.