Author: DGoodbourn399

Jez’s Group On Tryfan

Posted on | By DGoodbourn399 | No comments

Hey it’s Dr. Dumbledore Goodbourn and Will Scarlett here and we’re talking about what we did on Friday. We started off getting ready to go and climb Mount Tryfan. We decided to leave the centre earlier than usual because we wanted to get the most out of the day (and we didn’t want to be the last back – again.)

After a driving to the car park, we set off and started our ascent. This mountain wasn’t as hard as Snowdon. We started up a normal, but boggy path which wasn’t particularly difficult. After a while the climb started to get steeper, but still manageable. We continued climbing for about an hour until we had a break, and at this time Greg realised that he put too much orange juice in so it wasn’t diluted enough. He wanted to get the water from the lake and the streams that ran through the mountain.

Even though the first part wasn’t difficult, we were still slightly tired, and we only about halfway up the mountain. Because of this, Mr Bright White thought of an idea similar to Tour De France, where the person in front would walk 50 steps and then head to the back, and the person behind them would do the same thing. At the same time, I (Dr Goodbourn) fell over (as usual) and pulled on Will Scarlett’s bag to get up. Because she wasn’t “ready,” I pulled her down and we fell onto either side of the rock.

We continued onwards, and we didn’t expect to fall over so much. Jess Combe was the first victim, where she fell into a bog and got COVERED in mud. Luckily Mr. White was there to take a photo of her (and it was luckily she didn’t hurt herself.) Generally we all slipped over. It didn’t help that it was starting to rain, so the rocks were getting slippery which would cause a lot of us to fall over later on.

Our slow but steady pace meant that we didn’t have to rest so much, which spurred us on to finish the mountain. Given our slow pace, you would expect that we wouldn’t fall often. That theory is WRONG, especially for Dr. Goodbourn, who slipped over MANY times. After about 2-3 hours of climbing, we reached the summit of Tryfan, where we sat down and ate our well deserved lunch in the pouring rain. We had a photo at the summit and we continued on.

Now that it had been raining for quite a while, the rocks were slippery which meant that we would be more likely to slip. It didn’t help that the route downwards was quite steep so we were even more likely to fall, which made our descent even more fun. The first part of our descent was climbing down rocks, which was like our ascent. We slipped but didn’t fall too much. After about an hour, we reached a man-made pathway which was still quite slippery and you were prone to fall. Us two were probably the two people who fell the most, but that was when we saw one of us fall, we saw the other person and started laughing at them and fell ourselves. We had a sense of déjà vu, because I (Dr. Goodbourn) fell and went to grab Will Scarlett’s bag and fell over onto the path – again.

At this time Jez (our instructor) went to grab the mini-bus from the car park because he knew we didn’t want to walk ALL the way back there again. The man-made path ended, so instead of rocks you could slip over, there was very boggy and muddy grass – which you could slip over. We wanted to make up time which we lost on walking down the path so slowly by jogging. We were lightly jogging and Dr. Goodbourn slipped on the mud. This caused Mr. White to turn around to see who slipped and fell over himself. Too bad we didn’t have a camera to capture the moment. We then generally got down okay, even though we did slip a few times and we put our feet in foot deep mud pits.

We wanted to show our appreciation for Jez by buying him a postcard from the Tuck Shop. We wrote on it and made it look nice. What we didn’t realise was that Suzannah had it in her bag the whole way up Tryfan, so by the time we realised it was soaked and a part of it was missing. Luckily, Mr. White had a spare postcard, so we used that instead. We still gave Jez both postcards though, and I think he appreciated them both as much as each other.

Overall we had a great day, and we had a great week. We would like to thank everyone who organised this trip.

By Daniel ‘Dr Dumbledore’ Goodbourn and Scarlett ‘Will Scarlett’ Eddy

Fluorescent

Posted on | By DGoodbourn399 | No comments

Hello, it’s Dan and Scarlett (Will Scarlett) here, and today we’re going to talk about what we did today (Tuesday.) Our day started at 7, and we got ready and had breakfast. Afterwards, we had a little meeting in our groups, which told us what we were going to do for the day. However, our group leader, who’s called Jez, wasn’t here today, so we had a supply called Poppy (who was equally as nice.) We were told that we were going to climb Mount Snowdon, which is also the highest mountain in England, Wales, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Maldives etc.

After leaving at 10, we drove 400m, and then we started our ascent. At first, our climb seemed not so difficult, but as we progressed, our climb grew increasingly harder. It didn’t help that we had blisters on our feet (especially Scarlett,) so our journey was even more difficult. One of the most challenging parts of our ascent was climbing up the steep stairs. Also Scarlett’s complaining about her feet did start to get a bit annoying after a while. Another bit of excitement was Greg doing an impression of a sheep dog, where he was running ahead of us and we had to whistle to get him to come back to us. A memorable part of the climb was Mr White’s fluorescent yellow hat (where he got his name ‘Mr Bright White,’ even though he claims it’s his intelligence.)

After about 3 hours, we reached the top of the mountain. All of our exhaustion didn’t matter for a while as we got to the peak. After a few quick photos at the summit, we ate our lunch (it was really misty and cold!)

Afterwards, we started our descent. Our pace was much slower but more steady, as we could slip easily. We also didn’t take many breaks, but on one of them, Mr Bright White took Will Scarlett’s hat, but as she took it back she high fived , which she has avoided so far (although we know it doesn’t count, because there was a hat in the way.) On the descent we were quizzing each other about random things, e.g how many football clubs start and end with the same letter and which country Timbuktu was in. Our journey downwards was more enjoyable as we were talking more and we weren’t in a rush to get to the bottom. After a quiz and talking we reached the lake, where we were skimming stones although some of us still couldn’t skim them (us two.)

The next part of our journey was possibly one of the most challenging. We were exhausted by this time, and our blisters got even worse. We walked on the path around the lake, but even though the ground was much flatter, our rucksacks and our waterproofs seemed heavier than they were before. There were many hills which blocked our view so we didn’t know how much longer we had to walk before we got back into our mini-bus. Around each corner we got more disappointed as we saw more pathways. Along the path we saw a building – possibly a church in ruins. Greg counted 14 glassless windows overall.

Even though we were exhausted and barely able to walk, Greg still ran between all of us even though we were like 20-30 meters apart. If he had the opportunity, Greg would run everywhere. After what seemed an eternity of walking, we reached the end, and our Mini-bus. We were so slow in walking back we were about an hour behind the rest of the other groups, so we had about 15 minutes to get ready for dinner.

Overall today was a brilliant day; it provided a challenge getting to the top and getting back down again without falling over. It was an amazing achievement and we are all pleased. The shenanigans between Will Scarlett and Mr Bright White were one of the highlights of the day.

(In the making of this journal Will Scarlett air high-fived Mr Bright White, which according to her still didn’t count because she wasn’t meaning to high five him – which is obviously a lie, because who wouldn’t high five him?) By the way our favourite words are mediocre and jigsaw and pudding! Also, try saying pudding without smiling (impossible?)