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

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

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

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 Skittles^TM, 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

We should probably explain now that the Head of the Black Hound is a mountain, standing at eight hundred and thirty three metres tall (precisely), adjacent to another mountain  named The Slippery Witch, a bizarre and dodgy name for a hill.

At roughly nine in the hazy, crisp morning, we boarded the minibus, driven by our instructor Jez. We travelled through the stunning scenery, an artist’s canvas splashed with orange, yellow, and green. When we arrived, we were greeted by an extremely steep and daunting hill. Leaving Jez behind briefly to find a more suitable spot to park the minibus, we began our trek up the Black Hound’s vicious and snarling head.

After walking up the steep incline, our legs already burning with unfathomable fatigue, we paused at a cattle grid, observing the sheep as they grazed leisurely upon the lush green grass, waiting for Jez. He arrived promptly (also out of breath like the rest of us) and he gave us a briefing of our treacherous route to the summit. Soon, we were on our way, keeping a sustainable and rhythmic pace.

Soon, after roughly about half an hour, we parted from the level road, and continued on to off road, and more bumpy and rocky terrain. Then, we shortly arrived at a reservoir, shimmering in the sun, now just above a tall ridge of far off mountains.

Presently, after a short break, we carried on, the path narrowing, and the heights increasing. The scree and loose stones crunching under our feet, we winded up the path, following in single file, the reservoir gradually becoming smaller and smaller, and the summit becoming bigger and bigger.

After several more breaks to have a drink and eat some food, we came suddenly to a great form of jutting rock, covered with patchy moss and plants, struggling to survive in the wind which constantly battered the sides of the rocks, weathering them and wearing them down to blunt protrusions. Jez talked to us about honing in on our weaknesses and strengths, and about conquering fears.

We began our climb, using both hands and feet as much as each other, meandering through the jutting stones, careful of our footing, for one wrong placement could end badly. The wind was picking up, hurtling at us like a galloping horse.

We burst up from the forest of rocks that hemmed us in, and came to a wide plain of swaying grass, the wind bludgeoning us from all sides, and the sun beating down onto the yellowing turf. The view was breath taking, a sight of rolling hills and protruding mountains surrounded by occasional woodland, the leaves upon the trees yellow and orange, Autumn well under way. Rivers and lakes were also etched across the landscape. We stopped for about ten minutes, then began our slow and gradual descent, along the way of which, we witnessed many signs of horses, but did not see the actual wild and majestic beasts themselves.

Eventually, after an hour and a half of ankle breaking decline, we soon passed the same cattle grid we had seen many hours ago, and followed the same steep path all the way back down to the minibus, boarded, and made our way back home, saying our farewells to the Head of The Black Hound, which bared its fangs at our departing bus.

By Seb and Ben