At the weekend I finally got to have a go at paint-balling. I have wanted to give it a try for a while but not knowing of any trips, and being too lazy to organise it myself… nothing had happened. Thankfully Zig finally helped me out by inviting me to his stag do up in Newcastle.

Note: I don’t have any pictures of the paint-balling yet… so for the moment here is a picture of the stag – we begged him to dress up or something but he just came out in his normal clothes (and smoking that damn cigar he always insists on)!

The schedule was pretty tight – I arrived in Newcastle after 11pm and then spent the night in a sleeping bag (on the fold-out bed) before getting up early to travel to the paintball centre. It might be a bit much to call it a centre actually! In the woods outside Newcastle a company had placed a few containers (to serve as buildings) and a portaloo.

In all, 12 of us made the trip out for dulux warfare – Zig had invited friends and work colleagues to make up his team. We actually got split into two teams of six which were then boosted by reinforcements from other stag events. One team had black/blue (quite appropriate) hoppers on their guns and the team of which I was a part had red/green. We all loaded up with expensive (£6 for about a hundred) paintballs which were cammo green in colour but contained pink paint.

The games were good fun but there wasn’t a huge amount of attention paid to tactics. Most games involved capturing an object or just surviving for the longest – the more masochistic players charged at the enemy whilst others held back behind whatever cover they could find. One guy had his own gear and insisted on showing off by joining whichever team he felt like at the time and painting the opposition orange. Our theory was that he was rubbish and could only win by painting newbies.

All in all it was pretty good fun, my fears of being the first out every round where not realised and I scored quite a few hits. The hits that I received only caused minor bruising, except for the one that hit my little finger and drew blood. Zig was much worse off as he (along with his best man) had to do the stag run – leg it away as almost thirty guys attempt to colour-in your back. I think the only down side was the cost of ammo – I blasted my way through £30 worth. Lacking ammo, myself and Zig made a brave (but foolish) run in the penultimate game to try to “kick the barrel”. I had to stop as about five shots hit me… a quick glance to my left confirmed Zig had suffered the same fate. I was glad that we had at least tried – some people spent most of the day cowering behind the first defensive blockade they could find.

The evening was the typical stag fare – we hauled our bruised and aching (a lot of running around earlier) torsos through a pub, Indian (restaurant) and a club.

Thanks to Zig for an excellent weekend.