A stroll on the beach

We all gathered in the Common Room to hear what Jez had planned for us to do today, he asked us questions about the previous day when we climbed Tryfan. We all replied with our low points and high points of the ascend up, and then our battery percentage (how much energy we had) for the day. He then told us we were going to go Sea Level Traversing, Tyrolean Traverse and possibly plunging into the freezing cold water from high rocks.
We hadn’t had much clue of what we were in for on the minibus there, but we were told to bring spare clothes and waterproofs. The journey was long, about 30 minutes, but everyone seemed excited and ready to go. We arrived at Anglesey Island, it’s quite big and also a very beautiful place.
Our first ‘tester challenge’ was climbing up a vertical wall about 10ft tall, with very spaced out holes to grip our feet onto. We were shown a demonstration by Jez, and were told we needed to work out who needed to go first and who needed to go last for more help. Lily went first, then Jed, then Hannah, then Ella, then Miss Hodget. When it was Maria’s turn……she got half way up and then she couldn’t find a foot hole. She was stuck. There 3 people at the bottom and 2 people at the top trying to help her up. Everybody was in hysterics, Miss Hodget kept taking pictures. Hannah was holding her hand to try to pull her up but she kept sliding down after Maria. Eventually, after about 5 minutes of struggling, she got up and then last 3 people climbed up whilst Miss Hodget continued to take pictures.
The next challenge was to down the side of a cliff and trough a tight space to reach a rock pool area at the bottom. It was simple until we got to the tight space. You had to sit on the edge of a large rock and slide yourself down, trying to find spaces to put your feet on the wet rocks. It was quite slippery and difficult to keep your balance. When we got to the rock pools, we decided to take a team photo so we climbed onto several rocks so we were all sitting down. On the way up, Ed stretched his legs too far and ripped his trousers in the genital area! It was very funny. He had to go the rest of the day with his trousers like that in high winds. So when Miss Hodget took the team picture and uploads it, you may see Ed with his ripped trousers!
So, we were walking along the rocks and small pools for about an hour, the walk included small cuts in hands from sharp and sneaky barnacles and steep stealthy and slippery stepping stones. Jez had told us to follow the person in front’s steps exactly, this was extremely difficult when the person in front disappeared after a difficult part if you needed their help, we all had to keep remembering to look behind us to see if anyone else needed help getting up the walls.
After a while of walking, we came to an end and walked back to the car park to eat our lunch. No one really spoke through lunch because we were all so hungry and we just ate. When we had finished eating, we had to try on our harnesses and put on the cows-tails that would attach us to the Tyrolean. We walked for about 5 minutes to the Tyrolean and when we got there it was a big drop. By this point some people were a bit nervous but they knew that it would be fine. Jez demonstrated and then Miss Hodget had her turn. Then one by one, we carefully walked down the slope to get to the rope. We got attached and climbed along the rope. When we got half way, we had to try to do a back-flip and land on the top of the rope. Nearly everyone tried and nearly did it. No-one managed to do the whole thing apart from Jez- showing off his ‘abs of steel’.
Then we climbed across rocks to the edge of some rocks where we could jump in, fully clothed! Nearly everyone jumped in and it was really fun! Everyone was very nervous and excited about this part. Ed and Jed were the first to jump, they immediately screamed and scrambled to get out of the cold water! Hannah and Lily went next, their reaction was almost dittoed! It was so funny! Then Ella jumped in on her own, she didn’t want to jump in with anyone because she was scared she would get crushed or land on somebody! Lily jumped with Jed next, and then Ed jumped again and then Hannah, Jed, Ella and Lily jumped again a couple of times.
Then we went back to the minibus to go and get out of the wet clothes to go change behind a sand June. This was quite tricky and very funny, then we began the long fulfilling journey back to the centre.