Woohoo. Hallowe’en. Brilliant. Such a useful holiday. We’re all wearing werewolf masks as we write this.
And now I’ve got the Hallowe’en stuff out of the way…
Last night Sam was on the climbing wall as Jacob Hyland was accidentally pulled up by a much heavier Sam and I was doing problem-solving again in evening activities where my group was victorious in both lassoing a ‘bomb’ and moving seven people and a bucket full of water across two raised platforms with nothing but a rope. And after that we had lots of fun (read: I had lots of fun) when half the group was blindfolded and the other half had to lead them through trees.
After that point we all went into the common room to watch War Of The Worlds. I left fairly early and tried to sleep, but rest assured, my roommates kept me awake and updated when they came back.
This morning I woke up at God knows when and had to help lay the tables for breakfast and hand out eggy bread, sausages and spaghetti hoops. Everyone watched Ben and Holly’s Magic Kingdom/Peppa Pig for a bit (a unanimous decision, clearly) before we went to our various meeting places to find out about the day’s activities.
Our group was… overjoyed… to find that we would be expected on Friday to complete a walk all on our own with no instructors, just a map. Simon claimed this was to teach us teamwork; he is lying. He simply wants a lie-in.
Our walk today started in a village I can neither spell nor pronounce (I suspect the Welsh language was made up whilst someone was drunk) and passed over three miniature railways towards the hill of Moel Hebog. Almost everyone was tired and lost after ten minutes so Simon decided to show no mercy and make us walk at least another twenty minutes before we stopped. It was during this stop that Mr White treated us to his Harry Potter reviews and asked us about dreams jobs and families (Mr White’s family actually owns the American President’s house).
After an incredibly windy and slippy climb up to the top (if you see any random bloodstains on Welsh mountains, now you know why) we embarked on an even slippier and windier climb to the bottom where six of us fell over. The two adults were no help; “No, no, no, we’re not helping you get back, you need to learn navigation and decision-making.”
Over the course of our return journey, we found a wood and argued constantly over which way to go. How many times did we need to go right? Two. How many times did we actually go right? Three. How many times did Alex Mundy threaten to ‘become adventurous’ and go off on his own? God only knows. How many times did Devon complain he needed to poo? See above. Not that I like to argue with people who sing whilst peeing in the middle of woods, but…
We managed to get back eventually and didn’t do much until tea when we all had either Macaroni and Cheese or Pasta Bolognese. Which did I have, I pretend to hear you ask? Both. I couldn’t just let two meals go to waste, now could I?
And that is how we got to now, give or take one or two vital bits. And now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to go and try to convince Mr Alderson that he promised us a reward for doing this.

By Jamie Raven and Sam Eapen

Today was the second day of our trip and we were woken up at 7:00 by Ms. Webster. Some of us had a shower before breakfast while others were too cold and couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed. The options for breakfast were bacon, scrambled eggs and potato faces or pan au chocolat yogurt and fruit. After breakfast most people went into the common room to watch some interesting and exciting TV – Pablo on CBeebies. Although soon we had to meet our group *The Raindrops* in our designated area which is the staff room.
Our leader is called Simon and we have Mr. White as his assistant. In our group we have Savannah, Paige, Charlotte, Alex, Oscar, Devon and Sam. We were told what we would be doing and the clothes we had to wear. We were told to have a complete set of spare clothes, a towel and waterproof trousers as we might get wet near the end. When everyone was ready we met each other in the store shed to collect some snazzy gear to prevent death!
Once we had finished we got on the minibus for our 45-minute journey to the beach. On the bus we played games and Paige read a book. Soon we arrived at our destination and walked to the edge of the cliff, and started to put on the harnesses, while Simon set up the rope along the face of the cliff and Alex and Oscar put our lunch barrel somewhere safe. After travelling along the rock we encountered a gap that stretched over the water. We then all watched Simon set up the tiny zip line but to accomplish this he had to attempt a jump across the gap. This failed and resulted in him getting wet feet and legs. Everyone laughed and Mr. White got an action shot of the jump.
Next all of us had to go across the rope; however we had harnesses with carabiners attached to the line so it was less likely for us to get wet, even though some of us still did. Mr. White didn’t lift his legs high enough and got his feet and a patch on his bum bum wet. By now it was around lunch time and we were all really hungry so we climbed up towards where we left the food and enjoyed our packed lunch which contained a sandwich, which could either be cheese, tuna mayo or peanut butter, a penguin biscuits (which were mostly melted and someone read out the joke which started a trend and everyone joined in), a piece of fruit if you took one, a pack of raisins, our bottle of water or juice and a cake with a cherry on top. Mr White ate Paige’s cherry and when Savannah gave hers to Charlotte he threatened to push her off the cliff (which he didn’t!).

Whilst we ate our lunch Simon set up a bigger, higher and longer zip line for us to cross, this one wasn’t so close to the water so no one could fall in. Alex got on top of the rope and attempted to crawl across, however this didn’t work very well, Devon and Savannah tried to flip on top as well, but failed miserably. Simon created an obstacle course to follow on from the line. Once we reached the top of the cliff Simon quickly collected all of the rope and jingly bits that were used to support us on the faces of the cliff, we had to organise it all. We then got told to remove our harnesses for a surprise!
Simon led us down near the bottom of the rocks, to the edge of the water and we could jump off of the smallest ledge first if we wanted to, and afterwards if we wanted we could progress to a higher ledge. Alex, Jamie, Devon, and Mr. White chose not to participate in the jumps whereas everyone else was brave enough to have a BASH!
Simon asked who wanted to go first and Savannah bravely offered to take the first jump. After that everyone followed her lead. The water was absolutely freezing and our clothes got soaked! Even Sam who can’t swim had a go and was able to not drown. By this time we only had 20 minutes to get changed and in the bus.
We were then told to get changed behind a bush and the boys did the same on the other side of the bus. This was probably the most difficult part of the day! As our clothes were soaking wet and our hands were numb it was really hard to get into our spare clothes. Whilst we were getting ready a little boy with his mother, two dogs and a horse walked past when we were naked with only towels around us. Quickly we scrambled onto the bus dripping with salt water and messy hair! The ride home was really uncomfortable but in the end we had no regrets and could safely say that “it wasn’t us”. This was an inside joke involving: Alex, Paige, Savannah, Jamie and Charlotte. Basically the 3 girls (at the back) made up a game where they tap Alex on the back and pretended nothing happened. We found this really funny as he had no idea who it was. And Jamie distracted him as the taps continued. We convinced him that he needed a therapist however he claimed his mum took this position.
When we got back to the centre we had to dunk all the kit in cold water, this wasn’t good as our hands were cold, eventually dunking our own clothing and moving them to the dry room. We moved up to our dorms and were suddenly informed that a room inspection was going to happen in the next five minutes. We panicked! And then we cleaned our rooms as fast as possible.
We had dinner which was a choice of pizza or jacket potato and were both good and yummy. Sam started asking Savannah and Charlotte whether they knew who it was that was poking Alex on the bus, but they wouldn’t give in and said it was nobody lol. After dinner we chose who did the blog and here we are now, WOOOOOOO!

By Paige Austen & Savannah Day

This morning, we were woken up by the teachers and got dressed in what clothes we thought were suitable for the outdoor activities. We came down to the dining room for breakfast; we had the choice of Sausages, baked beans and hash-browns or fruit, yoghurt and croissants. We then went into the green room to watch Justin’s House, Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom.

Afterwards, we were told our day groups and went off into different rooms and got told what to wear, pack and what attitude to have while climbing and while supporting people. We had fifteen minutes to change (if needed) and set off.

We set off in the mini bus of which our instructor, Simon, was driving. Our goal of this day was to reach the summit of Carnedd Moel Siabod *the big scabby hill.* Three members of the group were assigned jobs. Sam was the leader, deciding what pace to walk at and when we stop for a breath or food, Savana and Charlotte were navigators and Alex was tail-end Charlie, keeping at the back and helping others.

Walking along the muddy road, we encountered a big flock of sheep and spent most of our time –along that road- avoiding sheep and rabbit droppings. Once on the rocky part of the mountain, our legs were already hurting we started our assent on a good grassy patch to begin with but it soon got rocky. We passed three lakes and stopped every now and then to eat, drink and change the amount of layers we had on.

On the way up, Alex was in a very bad mood and said that the whole thing was really easy. We soon found that he was tired and wanted to save his energy. On the other hand, on the way down, he was his annoying but quite humorous self.

After stopping for a drink, Oscar realised he had accidentally taken Dom’s bag who was in the Snowflake group. So Oscar had to deal with Dom’s lunch and waterproofs and fleece. Oscar doesn’t like butter but Dom’s roll had butter in it so Oscar didn’t eat the roll.

After passing the third lake to mossy ground became very wet and boggy. We all avoided the first few but then, Simon joked about an extremely muddy looking bog being a ‘child-eating bog’ which most of us avoided apart from Savana who practically jumped into it. This particular bog was knee deep and she got stuck. Charlotte tried to pull her out towards the side she was but the rescue failed so she had to be lifted out by Simon and Alex. Savana’s boots were covered in mud but they dried off pretty quickly but her joggers on the other hand had only dried by the time we had reached the mini bus.

As we climbed it got colder and colder and we saw snow and lots of ice. We reached the top and we were exhausted. At the top, Mr. White was also eating lunch with us and got out some leftover pasta from last night’s dinner and in doing so, stated ranting about how he had the pasta like, “Pasta, pasta, I’ve got ‘de pasta,” in an Italian accent making lots of us laugh. We finished our lunch and took a few photos then we started our descent.

On the descent slips and falls were a common occurrence and especially for Devon. We passed a few sheep and icy puddles and then new jobs were assigned. Oscar was the leader, Devon was the Navigator, no wonder we got lost, and Jamie was the tail-end Charlie however all jobs were soon demolished as Oscar and Devon ended up at the back with Jamie Leading the front.

There was a very steep patch of grass we had to walk down but Paige thought she would slide down it instead. So she sat down on the grass and pushed herself forwards. She only went a couple of metres but unfortunately slid into a massive pile of rabbit droppings.

Once we reached the bottom of the mountain, Both Simon and Mr. White made us find our way back to the mini bus (coming back to how Devon got us lost) but Charlotte had to step in to point us in the right direction. We got back and with our feet aching and our energy depleted, we trudged –and for Savana squelched- onto the bus and set off on our way back. Someone said and I quote, “I feel like I’ve achieved something today!”

Once we got back, we showered and got ready for dinner, sweet and sour chicken or chicken curry, and dessert, angel delight or apple crumble and custard, before going to our rooms for ten minutes to relax or tidy our dorms. People who were going climbing left and everyone else waited another five mins to either go problem solving or blog writing (where we are now) and we can only guess what happens next.

By Charlotte Page & Oscar Annis