A MAJOR £1m transformation of Liverpool's Colomendy education centre was unveiled yesterday by the private leisure company that wants to make it the "best in Europe" by 2009.
Already, 75 Liverpool schools have signed up to visit the 130-acre site, after adventure facilities were added, including Wales's longest "zip wire", and Europe's "most realistic" artificial cave.
A new climbing zone is so impressive that the Army has revealed it wants to sign up to train new recruits on what it says is the best facility of its kind outside Catterick military barracks.
There is also a picturesque new lake for canoeing, sailing and rafting, an archery zone, and a six-pond, great-crested newt reserve in the woodland behind the centre's "top camp" dormitories.
The largest of two new zip wires runs for 120 metres over an 80-metre drop, offering exhilarating views of the Denbighshire countryside, including most visitors' favoured hike, Moel Famau.
Behind it is a 40-foot high climbing wall fixed to a tower, at the top of which is a rope bridge that children are clipped onto with a harness before crossing over a small ravine.
Farther into the woods is another series of five-sided wooden towers equipped with climbing walls and abseiling ropes designed to build team work and communication skills.
More adventurous children can be clipped by a harness to a huge 'aerial trek' where they must navigate a quadrangle of scramble nets and obstacles, while dangling 40ft up.
Another series of adrenaline-inducing contraptions includes the 'traverse swing', where children are hoisted 40ft in the air from the waist and launched into a 180-degree semi-circular 'flight'.
Below lies a new 40-metre long artificial caving complex complete with giant fake 'stalagmites' and 'stalactites' to echo natural features protruding from the floor and ceiling.
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