Duke of Edinburgh Awards
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
I just did my D of E bronze test expedition, and I finished today. It involved walking 26 km (not that much I know, but there were lots of hills and valleys being in Wales) and I'm quite tired. I don't have any blisters cos I used 1000 mile socks which are guaranteed (money back) not to wear out before you walk 1000 miles. Also you can get your money back if you get a blister before then too, which is nice. We started off from Redbrook (don't ask)and went to The Narth going about 3000 miles out of our way (we got lost). I was in a group of 6 people - there was me, Chloe, Harriet, Holly, Hannah and Jo. The first checkpoint (at the Narth) was right outside Holly's house so we sat in her garden for about an hour playing with her cat. Which was nice. I'm not sure we were allowed to but noone complained. By this time we had walked about 4 km officially but probably more cos we got lost. Holly's dad then told us where to go for the next bit (don't tell anyone) but we still managed to take a wrong turning. The place we had to go was along a little path which was hidden by a tree but we followed the main path. At the junction between these two paths was another group and they were really evil and told us we were going the right way. We soon realised we weren't because of our impeccable sense of direction (yeah right) and turned back and went the right way again. We went along a path for ages and we were walking past someones garden when we noticed the bonnet of a car on the lawn. It looked like a very nice car. We walked a little bit further and there was the rest of the car in a funny position in a garage with a man working on it. Hannah, being a very social person, went up to the man and asked him what kind of car it was. He said something like a Libra GTX, and it was a very special kind of car with the engine at the back instead of the front (or was it the other way round?) and it was a gorgeous sporty yellow two-seater and I'm going to stop talking about it now. Also at the same place was a dog which looked like the one from "There's Something About Mary", apparently. I looked at its name-tag and I thought it said Cheddar so we called it Cheesy, cos we're quite weird. We later discovered it was called Cleddon after the place it lived, although it answered to Cheesy. We eventually found the next check-point where the teachers really annoyed us by telling us we looked like christmas trees. We then had a really really really steep slope to walk down to a river and it really hurt my feet. I found a very useful stick on the way down, and proceeded to use it for walking. This article is getting very long. Anyway, we got to the river and crossed it via the very useful bridge, and stuck a note to a telegraph pole saying we'd been there. You just have to do these things sometimes. We then had a really really really long uphill climb to the campsite and I was completely shattered by the time we got there (at about 6:30). We sat for a bit then decided it would be a good idea to put our tents up, so we did. We went to a swing on a tree and phoned some friends which we weren't allowed to do but it was fun, and we made loads of noise. When we got back to the tents we realised that we had been really evil because there was a family with a baby camping down near the swing. We managed to get to sleep eventually after talking about all sorts of things you don't want to know about. We later learned that one of the teachers had heard everything we said, including the fact I never learned my times tables in primary school. I woke up at about 6:30 the next morning and got up slowly. I was still packing when the others were taking down the tent around me. Not that I'm slow or anything... . We got going at about 8:15, in completely the wrong direction, then realised what we had done and wentthe right way. From then on it was pretty straight forward. There was one point where we al;l sat in a field and talked to someone on a mobile while throwing it to each other and consequently dropping it. Poor Owen (or should that be Owain?) Anyway, the second day (ie today) was very short, only 6 km out of a total of 26 km, and even though we got lost at the beginning we still got back before 11:00, which was what we planned to do. I am very tired now and I can't believe I just wrote all that. Please bear in mind that this was all done with a rucksack and a tent on my back, so my shoulders are extremely sore (despite putting panty-liners on them to pad them - it's an army trick apparently). I loved the expedition, but it would have been a lot better if the teachers etc would stop being so picky (they got at us for cooking outside the tent when it should have been in the doorway). Basically, anyone want to climb up Snowdon?><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>><>
