Category: Activity Groups 2019

A day in the gorge

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

Today we went and did the most drenching thing ever. The beautiful but deadly gorge. The gorge that we went up was called the black gorge. It had just rained the day before so the water level and difficulty of climbing rose to a sporting level…but our team was strong and we went up it like a knife through butter. Looking from the back to the left then to the right and the front, were all amazing views. The leaves were like crisps under our feet and they were coloured with explosive oranges and yellows. The trees were leaning over the top like they were protecting us from a greater evil. The water was crystal clear and when it turned into white water it almost looked like the white beard of the rock.

As we stumbled and climbed and fell over and slipped a lot, we stopped and sir had turned around to a bush and we were all thinking, what is he doing, then he turns around and is holding this plant. He gives one to each of us. he says eat them, so we do as we were told we ate them. It tasted like apple… it was called Wild Sorrel. So obviously everyone kept picking it up for the rest of the journey. then after more slipping and falling and getting cold. we  reached the top. We all came face to face with the plunge pool. it was kind of scary. but most of us gave it a go and found it cold but very fun and once we all had a go, we went back to the bus soaked and tired, we had to go down the steepest road in north wales but we finally got the the bus.

By Rowan

Sea Traversing

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

Thursday Evening:
We went climbing in a group of 8.We started by practising on the walls in 2 groups of 4 people and we used the technique of  b-laying each other.After we had a turn on each wall we moved on to the crazy climbs.One of which included a speed climb in which Aiden got an incredible time of 9 seconds.There were also many other climbs that involved many other interesting and challenging climbs. Although we only spent about 2 hours at the climbing walls we all had a great time.

Friday:
On Friday our group had our turn to try the sea traverse.After crossing the bridge and an hour mini bus journey we had finally arrived.It was a long journey as where we were going was on a completely different island.We even passed through the place with the longest name for a town in Britain with 54 letters and even 4 l’s one after an other. When we had finally arrived we spent about an hour sitting on top of the cliffs eating lunch while activities were being set up.As we joined with another group for this day we started on the cliff traverse.In this activity we had to use a rope and 2 karabinas to move along the face of a cliff 30ft above the jagged rocks below. After this we swapped over with the other group and we had a new activity to complete,on this one we had to pull ourselves over a single rope suspended above a 30ft gap between two peninsulas. After we had to traverse around another cliff face and over a a 50ft deep crevice in the ground.

By Reid

Rock Climbing

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

Yesterday evening we went to the climbing wall and there were 2 walls that we climbed with manual b-layers and I managed to climb to the top of both walls. After those walls we went to the crazy climbs which were great fun as there were all sorts of climbs.

Today we were woken up to a new day full of new activities and knowing it was our last. We started of the day when we went down to breakfast; this is when we were told that we were going to have to tidy our rooms after activities. We then went to our rooms to get ready and came down to the common room; from there we went to our meeting rooms and were told we were doing sea level traversing. We got a list for what we needed to pack and wear. We retrieved to our rooms to fetch our kit. We then walked towards the mini bus when everyone was ready.

When we reached the place for the sea level traversing, we went and checked the conditions and they were too rough for our plan so we took a walk around the area and back to the minibus.

We then went to the centre to get some new kit for rock climbing. So we had some lunch and drove towards the rock climbing venue, which was conveniently close. The venue had 2 routes to climb and they were challenging in some ways. We climbed up and down them twice. We drove back after.

When we reached the centre we had to give everything back that we borrowed and said our last goodbyes to our instructors. We then went and got ready for dinner, and were told the routine for the evening. So we tidied our room until we went downstairs and had a choice for a movie, sitting and talking or reading. I chose to sit and talk, and play cards. After this we went to the common room and were given certificates based on our personality and best moments. As we progressed through the evening we were shown all the pictures of the trip. The day was finally concluded when we went up to our rooms and went to bed.

By Shaheer

The traverse curse

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

As we set of on our evening activities, I was informed that my room (me, Josh, Lucas, Reid, Shaheer, Finn, Kian and Aiden) would be undergoing rock climbing, which was taking place at a massive warehouse around 15 minutes from the centre. When we entered the warehouse we had to put on our rock climbing shoes and harnesses on from the centre, unfortunately for me I had picked a shoe the same size as my normal ones ( when we were meant to go get a size up ) , which meant my toes were curled up at the end and felt like they were in a vacuum seal. When we started climbing, we were having our group mates belay us, as an example of what belaying was Jez (who was our instructor for the night) had told Josh to jump off the wall and hold onto the rope and when he did, he hung up there not moving. When Shaheer tried to do the same he climbed up 2 metres jumped of the wall and fell back to the floor with a sudden bang. Halfway during the activity, I took my shoes of to see them how they felt like they were bleeding, but it turns out they were fine, and I was just being a huge baby. Later on that night we used automatic belayers which were machines that replaced what humans do, but the 1 rule was that you don’t let go of them, but unfortunately for Josh he let go and the belayer swung back to the ceiling, so Jez had to free climb the rock wall to retrieve the belayer. After the rock climbing, we head back to our rooms and went to sleep.

The next morning, we woke up and went to breakfast, I had scrambled eggs and porridge which was delicious. after we went to our activity groups and were told what we were doing that day my group was doing sea traversing with the top group. As we got in the bus to head off to the sea Finn fell asleep and there was no waking him up only when we poured a cup of water on him, he woke with a sudden jolt upwards. When we arrived at the sea we went to the cliffs where we would be doing the sea traversing. At one bit during the activity we had to harness on a rope over the sea about 15 metres up and the sea would smash against the rocks sending water pouring up at us, another bit was when we were climbing sideways on the cliffs and a huge wave crashed against the rocks soaking us in water. When we got back later that day, we sat down for dinner which was a choice of beef burger and chips or fish and chips. I went for beef burger which was the best food I had had all week. For desert you had a choice of chocolate cake and ice cream or pancakes and ice cream.

By Kai

Moel Siabod

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

Wednesday: Yesterday evening, the activities we did were rock climbing, the blindfolded square, the hanging maze and the levitation. The levitation activity was were you had to get every team member on a platform 0.5 meters above the ground.

Thursday: Today we climbed ‘Moel Siabod’, the hill to get to the mountain was dreadfully steep and when we got to the top of the hill to start to the mountain it was very cloudy. The scramble (Climbing without ropes where it is steep enough to use your hands) was very enjoyable and quite tough to get to the summit. The mountain was very beautiful with the cliff edge overlooking a circular pond and a very geometric waterfall which looked out of a video game. The pond was actually an old slate mine and we enjoyed throwing slate and skipping slate on the pond making a big splash and a bloop sound. Then we started to climb the mountain and began the scramble. The vision was really bad because we were in clouds and it was very very white. There was a drizzle of rain and the moisture of the clouds made the rocks very slippy. Slip and slide and slip and slide and slip and die (our song while climbing :). The way down was very annoying and really rocky with a bunch of BEeeeEEHHeeeeeEEE sheep. The way up the mountain though had a lot of bogs and one of our team members fell knee deep in the slurpy mud (Tom) I also fell in the mud, it went half way up my leg 🙁 (Dom.)

After this we finally got back to the minivan and went on our way back to the Kent Mountain Centre, me (Rhys) and Dom ate our brownies and anything we could get off the other people (mini chedderrsss).

When we got back to the centre we cleaned up our kit, showered and got ready for dinner. For dinner we had roast turkey, with cauliflower, carrots, stuffing, pigs in blankets and roast potatoes.

By Dominique and Rhys

Hailstones on Tryfan

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

Today we climbed the steep and rocky mountain called Tryfan ( pronounced Trivan ). Unlike the other mountains we have climbed, this one didn’t have any rivers for anyone to fall into. it was quite a steep climb with a lot of scrambling involved and wet rock to climb. The mountain is a dead volcano, resulting in the unpredictable rock faces and the steep rock faces. because we were in the clouds and there was a slight drizzle of rain, the rocks had a layer of water on them that made them very hard to stand on without slipping and falling. Unfortunately this was a common occurrence, slowing down the group. It was very funny to watch the other team mates fall, until it happened to you.

Going up the mountain was a lot easier then coming down. Going up was very fun because we were climbing up rocks and having an amazing view of the surrounding mountains that we had climbed on the first day. When we reached the summit, which was after two and a half hours, we found a rock that had a shocked face on it. On the back were instructions on what to do and we had the opportunity to either keep it or hide it again. we have decided to keep it and we will then hide somewhere else in our local area at home.

On the way down, Kian, Eleni and Tanzin fell down a lot. Because we were climbing down in a line if one of us fell, we all fell down like dominoes which was something we did a lot. We had to climb down a path that was paved with big rocks that due to the water were very slippy. Tanzin fell in horse poo, Eleni fell in the mud and Millie and Kian went down together a lot of the time. Reid often went a different, harder way which led us to wonder why he hasn’t died yet. Tim and Josh managed to keep up with Mr Alderson while the rest of us lagged behind slightly.

While we were on the mountain we saw a few different things. We saw some collage students from the Devon College, 3 feral goats quite high up the mountain that surprised all of us, some people repaving the path making it easier for us to walk down and a herd of ponies that didn’t run away when we got close to them.

Our meals where pretty good today, for breakfast we had smiley faces with baked beans and bacon, for lunch we had a choice of cucumber and humus rolls, sweet chilli chicken and Nutella. For dinner we had a roast dinner consisting of turkey, stuffing, cauliflower, carrots, gravy, cranberry sauce and pigs in blankets. Some other people has shepherds pie.

Today was a very busy day that was a lot of rock scrambling and slipping on your bottom. In other words it was fun.

By Star

Ogwen

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

Last night, we did problem solving in two groups. The first task was a complicated, hanging ball maze. We had to roll a ball through a maze whilst going over the numbers in chronological order whilst dodging the holes. The second task was creating a square with rope whilst being blind folded. We failed the first and second time but the third time we sort of succeeded. Our strategy was to use a member of our team to lie on the floor with their hands and legs out making a square. We decided to use grace as she is the tallest and the longest member of our group. We then drew round her with the rope whilst trying not to get tied up in the rope like Paddy (Patrick) did. Our last task was to build a structure that when we stood on it; it made us all ½ meter above the ground. To make our structure we were given 6 logs and 6 ropes. We lost miserably because our knots weren’t tight enough causing the logs to collapse all the time. We ended up standing on the logs and trying not to fall off them whilst they were being moved about.

Amelie was woken up really early by Mrs. Webster speaking softly through the door because someone in her room was on duty that morning. Paddy got woken up 5 minutes before he was supposed to be downstairs in the dining room for breakfast because Mr. Alderson forgot to wake up his dorm making him moody for the rest of the morning.

We had to leave an hour earlier than the other groups because our instructor was worried that we wouldn’t have enough hours in the day to climb the mountain. Sadly because of weather we weren’t able to climb up Snowdon. We went up Mount Glyder Fawr and it only took us 5 hours to get up and down.

We walked up the natural steps going up the mountain (near the devil’s kitchen) that was formed by falling rocks. There were 3 lakes along the mountain; one at the bottom, one in the middle and one at the top were we sat and had lunch. The top lakes looked a bit like an oasis because we were in the clouds and it was very quiet.

On the way down it was really steep so a lot of students bum shuffled down the slippery rocks. Whilst going down, Paddy slipped on a rock and grazed his leg and bashed his arm, making it hurt when he put pressure on it. Amelie was very steady on her feet that our instructor made her help other students climb down the tricky parts and lead the way after all of the scrambling.

Over all, we were all very brave climbing or bum shuffling down the mountain; especially Paddy and Shaheer who are very unsure about climbing up and down mountains and who struggle on the scrambling. We all managed to climb the mountain without having to stop several times and without being separated into three groups.

By Patrick and Amelie

So basically we climbed a mountain

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

So starting from last night’s evening events, our group started with the hanging maze. For this challenge, there was a black 8 ball and a hanging maze (literally) with holes and numbers. We had to move the ball to the numbers (from 1-35) in order without the ball falling into the holes. When our group started, we were doing quite well, due to the fact we were actually concentrating, and were able to get to 1 because we thought 27 was 2 but never mind whereas the other team got to 4. For the blindfold square, we were blindfolded and were told to make a square out of rope. This was actually quite difficult for us as we were all over the place but we soon found out a “good” strategy. That was Grace lying on the floor looking like a star fell on the floor and then my team wrapped the rope around Grace (which kind of sucked because she got kicked in the head like 5 times). As for the other team we found that having four people (one on each corner) walking backwards made a rough square, then one of us walked around the edge and tried to figure out whether it was a square or not. Turns out it was a rhombus. For levitation, both of our teams were together but still split. We were all told to make a structure which made the whole team at least half a metre off the ground. Rebecca’s team made a really good structure that worked but I think it was only because they actually knew how to tie knots. Our team were happily making failed structures because we didn’t actually know how to tie poles together.

The next day, we climbed Glyder Fawr, it was more of a scrambling mountain than a walking one which we found better. When we first set off it was a quite a long, steep walk to the scrambling part. We walked across a large bog and we bounced on it because it was bouncy. We found some blueberries growing on a bush and we all tried some (they were quite sour since it was past season). After that we carried on the steep part which killed our legs and were talking about our childhood TV shows and then stopped for a short tea break before the climb started. When we started climbing, it was a bit slippery because there was a small waterfall the entire way up. Issy and Lily both slipped on the way up which was quite funny. When we got to the top of the mountain we saw some large sheep and goats. We found a large boulder and climbed on top of it, Lucas slipped off but was able to make it to the top of it his second try. We found some weird grass things that has a material that when you peeled it, you could use it as a candle wick. We started walking back and found some red moss that you could drink but the water when it got squeezed out is slightly acidic. Issy tried drinking some but failed. We stopped by a waterfall and drank out of it and it tasted like ice. On the way down there was a small flock of sheep and the rocky steps were really slippy and we all at least fell down once except Kai. On the way back (since everyone was exhausted) we all fell asleep except from Rebecca and Lucas.

By Grace and Rebecca

Gorge Porge Norge Lorge George

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

After dinner at 7:30 we met for the evening activities. We were split into two groups ( Kai, Tanzin, Eleni, Hazel, Reid, Shaheer, Aiden). we were doing a game where one person was allocated the leader and had to communicate to the others ( who were blindfolded) without talking. We decided that the quiet whittle meant backwards and the louder whistle , meant forwards. We gave each person different claps, so that they knew who we were talking to. In the end we all made it into the pen and got full points without communicating. The next activity we proceeded to was theses planks of wood that we all had to stand on. We held on by clinging to the ropes. we had to work together to move in time to get to the cones. the last activity consisted of swinging on a rope with a bucket of water without a single bit of water dropping on the floor or falling of the platform. After 3 tragic attempts we finally thought of the smart idea to tie the rope to the buckey and swing it gently across. We completed all the activites with a final of 21 points.
We went to bed at 10 o’clock.
We woke up at a quarter to 7 to have a shower ready for the day ahead to begin. We had breakfast at 8 o’clock. After breakfast we went upstairs to get ready for the day, we got ready, dressed ourselves, cleaned our teeth and brushed our hair. We then met in the common room at nine o’clock after the instructors had a meeting to discuss what we were doing . Our group was going up a gorge and abseiling we collected our gear; wellies, helmet, buoyancy aid, harness, waterproof jacket and waterproof trousers. we got on the mini bus but it didn’t start so we had to move into a different bus and set sailed on our adventure. We got to the car park and had to put our harnesses, carabinaners and anchors on. We had a short walk to the place where we were abseiling from. Kian went first because he was the bravest then Tanzin, then Millie, then Josh, then Eleni, then star, then Reid, then lastly Tim. At some point on our absail we all swung during our way down. The group of us then walked down this steep path to get back to the minibus. We sat and eat our lunch after putting on our waterproofs and readjusting our harnesses. We took another short twenty-five minute drive to the gorge. We got there and immediately saw water. The first climbing part was very difficult and Millie fell in, luckily it wasn’t very deep but she got very cold but at least she had her waterproofs on. We climbed up more rocks and got to a slippy bit where we could slide in and the water was up to our hips, Kian was unfortunately dumb and didn’t wear waterproofs on his legs and got very cold very quickly. We scrambled up some more steep, slippery cliffs and tried to but we all fell many times. our heavy, wet waterproofs were constantly dragging us down and so were our water filled wellies. We eventually climbed up a waterfall and slid down a rock into deep, freezing water and had to put our heads under a rock to get through (our helmets fell off because we hit them rip). After a few hours we got to the very top where there was a plunge pool where we could jump into from a high height, the water was freezing and all of our clothes were dripping. when we eventually finished, we hiked down the steepest road in the world. Because it was so steep we all fell over. Everyone had bruises on their knees. We finally got back at ten past five. We cleaned our lunch boxes and water bottles then put our clothes in the drying rooms. Dinner was at quarter to six. Some people had mac n cheese and others had Bolognese. For dessert we had apple crumble and it tasted nice.

By Eleni amd Tanzin

The Gorge Storge

Posted on | By Mr Alderson

As the evening activities begun we were sitting at the dining room tables and were split into 2 groups, Slippery rats ( Kai, Tanzin, Aiden, Reid ,Hazel ,Eleni ,Shaheer) and the other which i do not know the name of. The first activity was a problem called shepherd and sheep where the sheep were blindfolded and had to get to the middle of a pen by whistle blows, me of course being the shepherd. The second problem was called swamp walkers, where we had to get across two pairs of cones on one plank of wood and we couldn’t fall of. The third activity was called rope bucket, where we had to swing on a rope from platform to platform with a bucket of water and Shaheer referred to himself as a human wrecking ball , unfortunately when I swung with the bucket it tilted backwards and all the water poured on me making me remain wet for the rest of the night, Hazel was a called a monkey as she Swung without any difficulty. The other group won and we then went to sleep.
As we woke up we stared at the wooden bunk above us and wondered if we would ever get enough sleep, i realised that is was 8 o’clock and we were late to breakfast. All of us sprinted downstairs to be greeted by the fact that i read the clock wrong and we were just on time, ( we were later greeted by Finn who only just got out of bed) the breakfast that day was as good as ever and then we collected our lunch and headed off to our daily activities. Our activity was gorging and we attempted to walk up the waterfall without falling, but with no surprise we failed and got soaked, at one point during the waterfall we had to go under a submerged rock and come out the other side, unfortunately for Simon he got stuck in the middle and couldn’t get out for 10 minutes the activity ended after about 4 hours and it was safe to say that we were all exhausted, When we got back to the van we all had to get changed in the parking lot and i forgot to bring a towel , a t-shirt and a pair of trousers, so i was sat shirtless in the back of the van for 45 minutes in soaking wet trousers. when we got back we had to put our stuff back in the storage room before we could hop in the freezing cold showers and make our way to dinner which was macaroni cheese. STONKS

By Kai and Simon

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