Category: Activity Groups 2016

Sea Level Traversing

The sea level traversing was a good activity. It was fun and (at times) quite challenging. My group went along the left hand side, whilst Will’s went along the right. Mike and Keith were our instructors, as Mr Alderson had been up most of the night. Mike gave us a different leader for each part. We did a few things, such as climbing through a gap between two boulders or jumping across a rock as a wave attempted to knock you off (but of course no-one fell in because we are the kings of hardcore parkour).

Will’s group on the other hand, first attempted to complete most of the right side. First we climb down the rocks but as usual Mr. White went the easier way. Then we had to jump over to another rock while there was water below us crashing against the rocks but Travis and Harrison failed and got drenched in water. Soon after about 5 minutes I got soaked as I tried to jump but failed but I did need a wee.

After doing their own sides, the two groups each had lunch and then joined up for the final challenge. Two ropes were set up across a gaping chasm in the rock, and each member of each group had to army crawl up one and slide down the other. Then after we crawled over, we would stop in the middle and attempt to try and flip our self over. For every person that did at least one flip would win a point but I was amazing at it so I did no flips. However, some of the lesser members of the group did two or more in a row without stopping like Luke, Ned, Miska and Finlay.

After that was over, some of us in the group jumped into the sea, whilst others (wimps) stayed dry and warm. After we’d jumped in a couple of times, we trooped off to the minibuses to get change into dry clothes. Bradley took ages, and the girls got fed up and told him to hurry up as they were coming over to get in the minibus (the boys got changed next to it). That got him moving.

By Ned Naisbitt and William Barker

Snowflakes in the Gorge

As usual, we were woken up too early, and stumbled through a brilliant breakfast that most of us were probably too tired to appreciate to its full extent. After the glorious thing called food, we were told the numerous things we needed for the day’s activity (namely Gorge Walking).  There ensued a mad scramble for the necessary items (half of which were by then forgotten, but later, sorely missed). We were kitted out with a helmet, a buoyancy aid and a special harness which the group agreed on, looked like a giant yellow nappy, when worn.  We were then sent off to find a pair of wellington boots that was the right size and had both a left and a right boot, a task which, so far, probably came second only to getting up that morning, in difficulty.  The people who were deemed to annoying (namely Hermione and Arek) were sacrificed to the gods of the Welly-boot Room. They were kept prisoner until the sacrificial flame was prepared or until Miss Webster took pity upon them and let them out. Even after the long amount of time spent in the Welly-boot Room, some *cough* Ben *cough* Nathan *cough* still managed to come out with two boots of different kinds, luckily the unmatched boots did not impede their ability to walk.

During the long journey, which we were all dying because of the millions of layers we were instructed to wear, we were all treated yet again to Summers wonderful singing as she harassed Bramble to give her back her rock / During the long journey, we were all dying because of the millions of layers we were instructed to wear (or was it Summers singing?). When we arrived, we engaged in the most dangerous activity of the whole day. Crossing the road. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on who you ask), no one died.

We walked through Gorges (hence the name ‘Gorge Walking’) and drank some “clean” water, according to (horse phobic) Jez (he secretly poisoned it, I know it), from a miniature waterfall. The “water” from the poison-fall was described as ‘refreshing’, ‘pretty good’ and ‘wet’. After we drank the “water” we carried on up the gorge stumbling through stuff and slippery rocks, but we all made it (relatively) safely. Somewhere in this, we came to a bunch of rocks called the Elephant Bottom. We had to climb up the Elephant’s Bum and up its throat.

At the end of the stunning but terrible dangerous gorge we made it to the, finale event, the plunge pool. “Yay”. The plunge pool was a deep pool at the top of the gorge that we could jump into,  if we were brave and careful enough. The first person who was brave (or stupid enough) to jump in to the pool was Summer (our test dummy). Soon after, everyone was jumping of like penguins, one after the other. It took some persuasion to convince Martina to jump, but she soon caved under the (peer)pressure and risked it. “That’s cold!” The understatement of the century.

After everyone who wanted to jump, had jumped, we set of down a road to where we parked the bus. When we got to the bus we had to change out of our wet clothes (in the woods!), which was interesting (and cold). We soon were ready to get on the bus and drive home, at which point Summer decided once again to treat us with her wonderful singing voice but this time, Hermione thought she would also treat us and join in.  Through the day and week, at random intervals, Arek would sporadically spray (more like douse) everyone and everything in a 100 metre radius with his 007  ‘aftershave’ (perfume). Overall, it was an eventful day.

By Lauren

Snowdon

We first started the day of with a breakfast consisting of pancakes, bacon, beans and hash browns and then we prepared ourselves for the day ahead: Snowdon. As we made the short journey to pen-y-pass. We got off the van and started the ascent up the tallest mountain in Wales. We followed the path named ‘Pyg Track’ at a sustainable pace (really, really slow). While travelling up this mountain, Arek was trying to pull Summer and while all the boys were at the front Arek was at the back with Summer (ahhh). Anyway back to the walking, we travelled up this path until we reached a gate which led to another path which we believe is called the ‘Badger Path’ We don’t know the real reason why it is called this but some people think that is was named after the first person to climb up Mount Everest and he used that path to train for the Mountain. The path was quite simple with only a few rocks here and there and ‘a not too shabby view’ that we could stare at, until we started to gradually get higher and higher up the mountain, nearing the summit with every step but as we got higher the wind got stronger and stronger. We started to put more layers on as the wind started biting at every bit of flesh we had shown to the air. We saw some strange wooden poles in the ground with coins crammed into them which were supposedly representing wishes, shortly after that we passed a strange tall stone called the ‘finger stone’. After about 15 minutes more of walking the wind still picking up and hammering on us we arrived at the summit the wind speed at its highest at this point we all touched the plaque at the summit and stopped down for a bit of lunch at a sheltered part of the peak and then we gradually made our descent back down the mountain. Partway through our descent we happened to see another group storm ahead of us, we said our hello’s and goodbye’s as they continued ahead of us. We continued along the fairly easy path down to the mini-bus pick-up point. As we neared the point Summer, having sung the whole trip started to create her own songs off the top off her head, which was getting very annoying by the end of this trip. As we reached the mini-bus we all cheered as we got to sit down in the bus. Altogether it has been a great trip today.

By Nathan and Sam

The day we were abandoned

This morning we had breakfast, and all the usual things that the other blogs had talked about that we cannot be bothered to type/list.

Any who we drove to a car park to drop off another group as they weren’t very good with organising themselves and we are clearly the DREAM TEAM (explosions and fireworks) however if you ask a reasonable adult they will tell you we were giving them a “lift” but we all know who was right.

Moving on we then drove to another car park which we then had to walk to “test” our map reading abilities we basically were abandoned and given a certain spot to walk to without getting lost and if we made it we had to climb 300 feet which is torture enough. However if we didn’t make it we would have had to sit tight and wait for a lovely responsible person to come save us AKA Mary (She puts the hard in hardcore, she is amazing)or have Mr white come save us. Also something else you might find rather interesting is that we manage to climb 3650 feet 2624 feet and barely get a blister however get us to walk 100 yards without a reasonable adult and Mr White and one of us manage to NEARLY twist their ankle. Yet AGAIN moving on we then had to climb the 300 feet which was a torturous session which consisted of Mr White giving us ridiculous riddles and perfect puns (look at that Amazing Awesome Alliteration (16 billion points to Miska and Kathy) see we haven’t completely forgotten our education). After climbing we stopped of at broken house with no roof and enjoyed lunch with some memorable banter going on. (by the way the food here is really good better than the school dinners).

Next we walked down the hill ( as apparently something less than 800 feet is NOT a mountain but a HILL) we then walked to the lake Llyn Dinas where we had an amazing skimming competition which the winning skim was eleven skims. Next we had to make our way back to the van which was parked in the car park. You can certainly tell how much the teachers love us by the fact that they drove by us while we had to walk all the way back In the RAIN. We weren’t happy about it I know.

No matter we had a great time and we can definitely say we love it.

By Katherine and Miska

Snowdon Adventure

mapThis morning we were all woken up by Mr Whites marvellous singing (again) but this time to Shake it off. We then all stumbled down to a yummy breakfast, then once we had stuffed ourselves up with a delicious breakfast we jumped onto the minibus nice and early to the bottom of Crib Goch.

We had a tiring walk up to a point of the mountain where we had to start scrambling and eventually after that we had to hold onto the top of the mountain in order to scramble across the top of the ridge. It was super windy!

We then carried on scrambling across the ridge of the mountain to reach the second mountain’s peak where we had a small bite to eat which was delicious and whilst we were munching away a couple of Kit-Kat wrappers went flying up the mountain because of the forceful wind so we were told.

After climbing our second mountain which was called Garned Ugain, we started to follow the well-known path up to Snowdon, once we arrived we were higher up than we had ever been in our trip and the view was amazing.

We all then descended the mountain, whilst walking down Hope decided it would be best if she hid in a bush and did a wee. After Hope’s adventure in the bush we continued down to the car park where the KMC Head, Mike was waiting helpfully to drive us back to the centre.

After we were home we had a scrumptious Turkey roast with an amazing Banoffee Pie and Fruit Salad. We then went to the common room for a bit of TV time and ended up watching cbeebies as it was the only good thing on at that point in time. Unfortunately, some of the boys (mainly Luke) didn’t feel the same about the choice of program and ended up having a battle of the sad kids.

By Bruno and Nicole

Trip to Cable Bay

Early in the morning we were woken up by Mrs Webster at 7:15. After a breakfast of eggy bread, sausage, hash browns and spaghetti hoops, we met up with our group leader (horse phobic) Jez so he could tell us what we were doing for the day. We were very excited to find out that we had the choice to either climb up Snowdon or go Sea level traversing, at Cable Bay. After a hard think our group (The Snowflakes) decided that we should go Sea Level Traversing.

Swiftly, we got suitably dressed and ready for our exciting day. Our Group had to prepare many bits of equipment for the day ahead like; a harness, a buoyancy aid, cowls’ tails, water proof trousers and water proof jackets. Then we set off on a long journey approximately 35 minutes on a mini bus to Cable Bay.

When we arrived at the beach, we came across our first challenge, a high wall that we had to climb up the side of (it was slippery and wet so quite tricky!) Ben was at the top as he was nominated to help us up at the last bit. He yanked us up so hard that we almost hit our heads on the ground! But he managed to get us up safely. We then went straight to our second challenge after scrambling over a few more rocks. The second challenge was a tight cave that we had to squeeze through and that to was quite hard because there were small rocks that we had to use to help ourselves down but we made it without any injuries or accidents!

We then had to get ourselves prepared for the next activity ahead. We put on any of the equipment that we needed for the activity (buoyancy aid and helmet) and then we set off. The activity was very enjoyable and was probably one of our favourites from the ones we’ve done so far. The rocks we had to scramble on (that were above the sea) were slightly slippery and rigid but no one slipped in the sea! The scenery was incredibly stunning with tall rocks, green grass and beautiful blue, clear sea. When we were climbing up a slightly more slippery part of rock, we were all distracted by a seal that Mrs Webster spotted in the middle of the sea. It soon swam down back into the water, before we could get a picture, and we continued on with the walk.

After the first part of the activity we then stopped and sat on the top of the marshes above the beach for lunch. We all were hungry and exhausted already so we ate well. We had 2 ham rolls, jaffa cakes and short bread. It was mouth-watering. Our Group then went on to the next part of the activity which we needed our cowl tails and harnesses for because we were going across two parts of a cliff using a rope. It was challenging, but fun and after all the work and effort we were able to take a fresh dip in the ice cold sea.

After we headed back to the mini bus and we all got changed out of our wet clothes and into our warm, clean, dry clothes. We then got onto the mini bus and halfway back to the centre, Summer decided to start making up songs (about trees, bushes and roads…) We shortly arrived back at the centre where we had to shower and put our clothes in the drying room.

That was our fun filled day, full of scrambling, crawling and balancing!

By Summer and Hermione

The day William rolled down the mountain

Today we woke up earlier than normal, because we had to do breakfast duty. This meant that we had to be down in the breakfast room to set up all of the cutlery and breakfast. On the breakfast menu there was:

  • sausage
  • hash brown
  • eggy bread
  • spaghetti hoops
  • croissant
  • fruit and yoghurt

After that, because we were on breakfast duty, we washed and dried up all the cutlery and plates and we cleaned the tables.

After that we headed out to our activity, to climb three mountains (Carnedd y Filiast, Mynydd Perfedd and Elidir Fawr). We drove out to the mountains which took about 10 minutes.

We started with climbing Carnedd y Filiast which was the toughest mountain because it was very steep, long and very rocky. On the way up we came across a very pointless ladder which was not needed, it’s very stupid because there was a path right next to it and it blocked it. So who ever put it there, please take it away; thank you!!!

The next mountain we climbed was Mynydd perfedd. This was the easiest of the three mountains to climb, because we had already climbed most of it by climbing Carnedd y Filiast. We also took our biggest lunch break there to boost our energy for the next hike up Elidir Fawr. For lunch, we had honey (or other flavour) sandwiches, Jaffa cakes and shortbread. After our lunch break, we saw another annoying ladder and I got triggered (furious) so I kicked it and shouted go away.

Our next mountain was Eldir fawr which was not to hard as we already climbed most of the way but then we had to decent down and then this legend of a guy, Will Barker,(you should really get to know him, his hot.) He decided to roll down the hill with his S.A.S crew (Max, Luke and Fred) very fast and but then Mr White spotted us out and we got in cover and stopped. Then we continued our journey down hill looking at all the sheep and cows because they were being rude to us; Like with the ladders very pointless.

By Max and William

 

 

The Gorge Adventure

This morning we were all woken up by Mr White’s harmonic singing voice (once again) but this time to Baby by Justin Bieber. For breakfast, we ate a delicious eggy bread and a mouth-watering sausage. After breakfast, everyone went into the common room (a comfortable and friendly zone with a Television).

At around 9:00am we all jumped onto the minibus with our very appetising lunches before we set off on a long journey to the beautiful gorge (the journey was good as we saw spectacular views of Snowdonia).

Once we arrived we geared up in our cosy waterproofs and fluffy fleeces and made our way too the mind-blowing gorge. The sound of the water was beautiful as it trickled down the rocks. We waded through the refreshing stream and climbed the never-ending rocks with Mr Alderson bravely leading the way eventually we arrived at a very slippery path and Bruno fell on the rocks but luckily he wasn’t injured so everyone laughed but this didn’t distract Finlay from carrying out his humungous stick and huge hole experiment and he found out that the small hole in the wet river was 7 foot deep!

We finally arrived at the incredible waterfall, the sights of the clear water flowed effortlessly over and past the ancient rocks, the view left us all in awe as we jumped into the refreshing pool before waddling back to the coach.

Once we were all back at the lodge we had warm showers (apart from Finlay). Then we all had pasta and apple crumble for dinner which was cooked to perfection then we came to the lecture room to write a blog about our day…

By Bruno (again!) and Hope

The stegosaurus

Arriving at the mountain we were all thinking the same thing: do you think he saw-us (get it?) and also hoping that the fog would calm down. The beginning was simple, walking on dry grass, wet grass and passing the occasional river. Then the terrain went rocky road, we felt like goat parkour masters as we climbed rock to rock. We could feel rain beginning it spit upon us. We scrambled up the mountain for about an hour, it was exhausting but when we got to the top, well at least we thought so.

The fog was so strong it looked like an unfinished cartoon with no background, just plain white, the  fabulous view of utter nothingness, because of this Jez, our horse-phobic instructor, had to give us a WHOLE 5 MINUTE break (thank god).In this break, like you do, I decided to have a cup of tea and be swarmed by the whole group just because I (attempted to) secretly remove this delicious product from my bag and taste the whole rainbow of flavours from SkittlesTM, but I only had red and green, fortunately there was still 60% of the product inside my bag. After completing our journey and reaching the summit the fog had cleared and you could see the amazing view and thought to ourselves “how did I like get here?”

We ate lunch, took a picture by Adam and Eve, two rocks that stood next to each other, Eve being the shorter one and Adam being the taller and the thinner. Then we begun our descent. We half climbed – half slid down some rocks till be got to a ‘stair case’. It was a path made of lots of badly placed rocks that we couldn’t step off so we wouldn’t erode the mud.

Going down was equally or maybe even more difficult but twice as rewarding with the views, slowly seeing our minibus getting closer and closer, our feet hurting more and more we all begun speeding up and watching our feet to not to step into any sea deep mud (which unfortunately happened to me).

So in conclusion the trip up Mount Tryfan (stegosaurus) was an amazing, foggy, wet and rewarding with the view experience.

By the way we called Mount Tryfan Stegosaurus because from the last mountain we were on (The head of the black hound) from there, it looked like the back of a stegosaurus.

By Arek and Bramble

Afon Ddu Gorge

Today was an eventful day, despite the fact of freezing in the icy Snowdonia waters, we learnt a lot of techniques and had plenty of fun making our way through the slimy rocks and gushing waterfalls. We managed to get plenty of photos thanks to Mr White’s impeccable camera skills using up most of Travis’ storage on fungi, and of course us.

First of all we began the morning with a wakeup call and a nutritional breakfast to start our day, from there we made our way to the lecture room to be told what task we had ahead of us. We was given a long list of necessary equipment including things such as waterproof tops and bottoms, food, drink, flask, spare clothes, towels, hats and gloves, medications, helmets, boots etc. And more, so as you can tell the space in the coach may have been a bit cosy for some of our likings.

We left shortly after collecting our kit for a 40 minute journey to get to the gorges. Once all geared up we was lead by Mary (our instructor) to the very start of the trail. The sights was breathtakingly beautiful, it was as if we had entered a mystical movie scene. Little did we know that the journey was not going to be as nice as the views were.

Slowly, hopping from rock to rock, turned into a gruelling mission up steep, slippery, waterfalls. Even though some may have collected a few bumps and bruises, we all managed to succeed without anyone getting air lifted by the rescue squad (somehow). Some parts were quite deep, and thanks to the water proofs, it managed to get into our clothes, and stop the ICE COLD water from finding its way out  :/ . we finished the day with jumping into the water, obviously some forgot that we had to walk all the way back to the minibus….

All In All it was a fun day, now we all hope we do not come down with pneumonia. That concludes today and we are still awaiting what other experiences lie ahead of us.

By Harrison and Travis

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