It’s Eden and Izzie here!

Today we went to Porth Trecastell – (Cable Bay), on Anglesey Island to do some sea level traversing! It was a 45 minute journey, but it passed quicker than we expected 🙂 We were kitted out (HEAVILY) with helmets, harnesses, cowstails, short jackets, buoyancy aids and all our waterproof gear.

We got there about half ten and went down on the beach to do some practice rock climbing and scrambling. It was slippy and wet but fun and necessary. Next we went to a large wall, where we had to plan our own route up the rocks to reach the top of the wall, which wasn’t easy! We all helped each other and used teamwork to our advantage :).

Then we went back to the minibus where we sat with all the air blowers going trying to warm us up to eat our lunch and put on our harnesses and cowstails. We all put one item of food in Anne’s first aid kit in the waterproof bag to eat later on the rocks.

We then set off on the rocks to scramble and climb our way along the beach. As we were scrambling across there was a drop, with rushing water below and jagged rocks on the side. Three of us made it to the other side, including the instructor, but then suddenly, Josie’s foot slipped so she was hanging on to this rock by just her hands, using an incredible amount of upper body strength, and with Anne’s help, she managed to clamber back to her feet again! Vicky was really excited about jumping into the sea at the end, and at every available puddle or rock pool she jumped in, soaking her feet and waterproof trousers. Later on she jumped in a big one though and slipped and fell over, and me and Izzie couldn’t stop laughing! She was actually really happy and laughing about it though 🙂

After about an hour scrambling we stopped at a big drop to eat our snacks and have a drink while Anne set up loads of ropes to form a Tyrolean traverse – which is sort of like a zipwire across the waves in the gap. All of us were really excited to cross over the zipwire, apart from Eden who was really scared to do it. Anne went over first and we sorted out the order we wanted to go in. Miss Hodgett helped us to clip on our Karabinas in the right way and one by one we slid over the waves on the rope. Then it was Vicky’s go. She started off okay but then managed to get her ‘behind’ stuck on the rock that you needed to push off to get started. She was stuck for ages and everyone was laughing, including her, but then eventually she un-lodged herself and managed to drag her body along the rope. Then it was Eden’s turn to swing along the rope. She was really frightened, but she gathered enough courage together to push off. She screamed halfway down but everyone was really supportive of her and she made it to the other side. The others clambered across until Miss Hodgett had joined us on the cliff face. We then clipped our Karabinas to an orange rope that ensured we would not fall off, and we scrambled up to the green rope, where one by one we swung back to the other cliff top.

We climbed straight up the steep cliff face to reach a muddy grassy path, which is where we started to descend. There were puddles. Lots of puddles. Muddy puddles. Vicky went crazy, and decided to jump in every puddle we came across, but then near the minibus she jumped in one, slipped, slid for 10 metres then fell down. It was really funny, especially when Izzie had to use all her might to jump out the way to prevent getting splashed. We then finally reached the minivan, were we took of our equipment and played games all the way home.

We got back first, which was a great surprise because we thought we were last. We were all cheering in the minibus;) We got first dibbs on the showers AGAIN!:]