As you can tell from the title, I did indeed go ringoing – or to put it another way, I slid down a hill on a big rubber ring!
It’s here in Blogmas because it’s a snowsport. You’ve probably realised by now that Blogmas around here is more winter-themed and snow-themed than Christmas-themed. I did try ringoing on real snow at the end of 2019, up the Engstligenalp, when I spent New Year at Our Chalet but this time it was on a dry ski slope – aka a hill covered in white carpet.
This particular dry ski slope is deep in Hurn Forest, an expanse of pine forest more or less directly behind Bournemouth Airport – or Hurn Airport, as the over-60s still call it. Dorset is known for its Jurassic coastline and its green rolling countryside but it also has a lot of heathland and a reasonable amount of forest, and in this patch you’ll suddenly come across Snowtrax Alpine Activity Centre.
I came here as a child for a ski-bobbing session or two and I’ve taken my Brownies on a combined ringoing & ski-bobbing Christmas evening out. The ski-bobs are like little tricycles with skids instead of wheels – they feel very top-heavy and very unstable which is why when I was looking at winter activities for Blogmas, I picked ringoing. Much lower centre of gravity, much lower chance of falling off, much less scary.
This is primarily an activity for kids who want something that requires less work and concentration than learning to ski. I was quite the oddity, an adult with no children. Why should children have all the fun? Why does “fun for adults” have to revolve around alcohol or private activities between consenting adults? I don’t like the taste of alcohol and I’m ace. Can’t I have the fun of sliding down a hill on a big tyre?
Yes, I can! I was there with two families. The first consisted of a girl of about fourteen with a brother of about four and a sister who surely couldn’t have reached the lower age limit of three. The second was a bit of about eight, maybe ten, and a girl a little older. The littlest kids went down in tandem with their parents and I soon began to refuse point-blank to go down with the horror in the green shirt, who had no concept of “let the lady go before shoving in”. No offence to the horror (full offence to him, he’s a spoiled brat!) but I don’t want to ringo alongside someone else’s child who I don’t even know. Unfortunately as he couldn’t comprehend that, it meant when he shoved into the track next to me, that I had to let him go first. Set the folks who were so furious with Phil and Holly on him. Queue-jumping little so-and-so.
I said I opted for ringoing because it’s less scary. Well, on my first go, I nearly chickened out. The slope looks a lot bigger when you’re sitting at the top of it in a rubber ring! You suddenly realise how fast this thing could go and how little control you have over it. I was definitely going to fall out! Why were my legs so long? I was definitely going to catch them. Probably snap them as I catapulted right over them. So many ways to die! Why was I doing this??
Spoiler: I didn’t fall out. I didn’t hit my legs with it on anything. I lost track of how many times I slid down the hill in that 30 minute session. Ten? Twelve? Fifteen? I never fell out. I went backwards a few times but mostly towards the end. My feet, which stuck out of the ring quite a long way, came close to the fence at the bottom and the poor bored girl whose job it was to sit there in case anything happened but that’s all they did.
But I did return with bruises! I’m pretty sure the rings are inflatable but they’re much, much tougher than the rings you take in the pool on holiday. The bottom half is particularly solid and when I rolled out, I almost always hit my leg on the very hard top edge of that bottom half. I didn’t notice the kids doing that, but I did notice the very small boy falling over on the white carpet every single time he got out of his ring to walk back up. I didn’t do that.
You have to walk back up! I’m too old to walk up a hill that many times! If you ski, snowboard or ski-bob, you ride back up on a kind of escalator but if you ringo, all you get is a moving rope. You can’t even sit in the ring and get towed by the rope. You have to walk. In fairness to me, a couple of years ago the tendons in the back of my ankles would have tried to rip themselves out and I was pleasantly surprised that they didn’t. But it was tiring.
Yes, you can have lessons and general playtime in more conventional adult snowsports like skiing and snowboarding. I don’t ski and I used Warmwell for my foray into snowboarding between 2010 and 2013. Their carpet is more carpet-like – Snowtrax’s is made of smaller cells, which I guess gives less friction and is more slidey but an instructor casually said “anything that can go in one of those cells – a finger, a hand, a wrist – can be broken”. I’ve not heard of a spate of broken bones at Snowtrax ever but I’m inclined to return to Warmwell if I feel the urge to slide down a hill standing upright on a plank ever again.
I didn’t visit Snowtrax’s Alpine Bar – it has a bar. There are wooden benches outside. I presume it looks like a bar at the top of a cable car might look. I probably should have done – walking up a hill in the sun that many times is thirst-inducing. Oh. Yeah. I actually did this at the very beginning of October when the weather was still wondering if it was summer. Got to get started on Blogmas early. The Alpine Bar features everything you’d expect in winter – glühwine, hot chocolate, burgers and hot dogs – but you can also get everything you’d expect at a Proper British Pub, from a fried breakfast to ham, eggs & chips, from a jacket potato to scampi & chips. It’s big on chips.
Instead, I spent the first 15 minutes of my drive home furiously regretting not getting a huge full-sugar Coke. In fact, driving home was generally interesting. I was in the car less than five minutes after jumping off the ring and I still felt like I was sitting in a big inflatable ring most of the way home, with a huge hump under my legs. As for the feeling of driving at 60mph through the forest straight after the feeling of almost free-fall down the slope – the 30 limit at the end was quite the shock!
And so I survived my snowsports under the warm early-autumn sun! For the record, it cost me £10 but by the time this is published it’ll be peak Christmas period when everyone wants to do actual winter snowsports and I would’ve be surprised if the price has gone up. Go, ye adults, and have some fun. Don’t let the children hog it all!