The weather today was very cold and torrential rain, it didn’t really make a huge impact on our day as we were visiting the Afon Ddu gorge which was a wet activity anyway. We started to pack our safety equipment before we left and made our way to the activity. We slowly arrived at the Afon Ddu (black river) after a 45 minute journey in the mini van, so we started to attach our harnesses and buoyancy aids to ourselves ready for the day ahead. Our team had to walk up a slope to get to the river, however many people slipped on the way as it was very muddy and steep, luckily no one got too hurt. Then we got to the destination after a short trek with slow people slipping behind (Amy, Spencer).
Our day in the Gorge started off as us walking across a river on slippery stones, and scrambling up through freezing cold waterfalls along the fast-running gorge water. Halfway through our trip Magic Mike (Our Instructor) had to lower us down into a dip in the gorge so that we could continue our day. We all had to attach our harnesses onto a rope with our ‘cow tails’ so that we were able to be lowered down, a few people had trouble getting down and slammed against a rock on the way! To climb up the next bit we all had to haul ourselves up over the other side of a slippery rock, Jasmine couldn’t get up so Keely and Olly had to keep trying to push her over it. When we reached the end, after many slips and falls, we were faced with a massive waterfall which we were allowed to walk through. After jumping in at the pool at the top and walking through the waterfall, we began to make our way back the way we came. On the way back Amy slipped off some rocks and fell onto some more before slamming her chin into another rock, it started bleeding a lot and left a dent in her chin which swelled up a little bit, Keely couldn’t stop laughing! After Amy’s chin was cleared up Magic Mike let some of us slide down a waterfall instead of climbing rocks. By this time we were already wet so didn’t care if we walked through water or jumped in anymore. By the time we got back to the mini bus everyone was soaking wet from falling in and our wellies made squelching noises as we walked from all the water that had gotten into them.
Magic Mike sent the boys and girls separate ways to get changed into dry clothes within the forest before meeting us all back inside the van where we ate our lunch and drank our hot chocolates to warm ourselves up. Then we made our way back to the Kent Mountain Centre and had showers to warm us up after our eventful day.
By Keely Fright and Jasmine Sayer