A rock climbing centre has opened up in town.

Rock Up officially opened in Watford’s intu Shopping Centre on Saturday.

Chief executive of Rock Up Heidi Duckworth opened the centre with the Lee family who won a competition to be the first to give the business’s wall a climb.

Instead of cutting a ribbon one of the family’s children, Daniel, marked the opening with the unclipping of a carabiner.

Here reporter Alex Alley – who has a crippling fear of heights, tackles the climb.

Imagine someone stuck 20 feet up on a wall with a tiny, slippery plastic handhold.

Now throw a paralysing fear of heights into the mix along with a feeling of humiliation as children as young as six gleefully scale the walls around you.

There’s a good chance you are imagining someone like me.

A 24-year-old, stuck on the wall for the past five minutes, losing my grip and trying to force myself to let go and drop to the floor while every fibre of my being wills me to cling on.

This was my time at the Rock Up in the intu Shopping Centre, a newly opened rock climbing centre of terror or paradise for others much braver than I.

Rock Up is a rock climbing centre newly opened in Watford.

The founders are Aaron Eade, a 22-year army veteran and Heide Duckworth, a City worker.

Aaron came to Heide with an idea to establish a rock climbing centre after a trip to New Zeeland.

Heide says the idea was to have a centre full of enough alluring fun things to do to keep dad and the kids busy while mum does the shopping.

This is why you will find a café and a crèche as well as supervised rock climbing.

Ms Duckworth said: “Families like to go to Watford, it is a great location, it’s got great demographics.

“In most places, there are either places for older children or younger children

“Our idea is somewhere where the whole family can be entertained.

“Aaron came across the idea in New Zealand and wanted to bring climbing to the masses.

“This makes it accessible, you don’t need experience or ropes you just turn up clip in, and you can start.

“It’s somewhere nice for families to go, other places might be stuck in a warehouse, but this isn’t.

“Everybody wins, dad and the kids go climbing, and we can go shopping, everybody will be happy now when you tell the family it's time to go shopping.”