Mr Alderson’s group – Tuesday
Jez’s group – Monday
Our first day at Kent Mountain Centre – and the night before
On Sunday we arrived at least an hour earlier than expected however the journey still took 7 hours! When we arrived we took our cases up to our rooms, got our kit and went down to have some dinner. We had chicken fillet burgers and chips and peas and for pudding we had a choc-ice. Then we went for a nice long walk through the woods to a “haunted” castle. Group 1 got there first and scared group 2 by jumping out at them.
Then we walked back home and had a hot drink and went to bed.
The next day (Wednesday’s birthday) we had a sausage, beans and hash browns for breakfast. Then we got ready to climb a mountain called y Garn. When we got there we realized how high it was (about 974 ft above sea level.) and started walking. At the bottom it was quite flat but rocky ridges made it hard to walk. When it started inclining there were steps in the ridge which were again hard to walk up it made your legs ache like crazy! It took about an hour to get halfway because we made good time; we ate a sandwich and had a hot chocolate which was sorely needed. The majority of the rest of the way was snow and ice. It was very treacherous and there was an awkward black cloud lingering which made it hail for a few second and then blew away. The first person to fall over was Wednesday because she is a butter brain. Then everyone was falling over at the top of the mountain. We got to the top and sat down and ate the rest of our lunch then sang happy birthday to Wednesday and it started snowing! We had a massive snowball fight and we made snow angels, contrary to what you may think it wasn’t cold at all. Getting down the mountain was fun we slid almost all the way down but near the end it became rocky and slippery and it was hard to walk. By the end everyone was muddy and wet but we could all agree that it was an outstanding day out!
By Wednesday Barber and Katie Hatt
Mike’s group – Monday
Mr A’s Group Sea Level Traverse – Friday
Today we went Sea Level Traversing along the coast of Anglesey. As usual the day started with two irritating girls at the back of the minibus singing ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ about seven times along the whole journey. The day was great fun and we tried lots of challenging and sometimes difficult tasks. Firstly we were given special clothing and equipment such as a canoeing jacket, a buoyancy aid, a harness, a safety helmet and a karabiner. So, we started our ascent down the cliff and as we did we saw a Sea King Rescue Helicopter which had a 25% chance of having Prince William on board! Also one of the crew waved to me so it could of been the Prince of Wales! To start with I led the group along the side of the start of the cliff face. It was fairly easy to start with, but eventually the tide came in and completely soaked all of my legs. Meanwhile, Mr Alderson’s camera suffered and got wet and to finish it off got dropped on a rock so unfortunately and unsurprisingly it doesn’t work anymore. For most of the cliff faces and gauges we had to use our ropes and karabiners to keep us safe, but at times we were vulnerable to the raging waves as Maria found out as she got splashed by a massive rapid whilst trying to climb out of the water onto a rock. We walked, scrambled, climbed and in some peoples cases slipped and had a swim, but eventually we reached a fairly deep cleft that was followed by a cave. Of course at this point we had to use the harnesses and karabiners provided. The cleft was quite slippery, wet and very high above the water. But luckily the rope and harness saved Ellie’s life as she fell in a massive hole after slipping on some algae on a rock. I had moved to the back of the group at this point so I was second to last to climb through the cleft. The cleft was very challenging and quite scary as the holds didn’t always feel safe. Eventually we reached the end of the cleft and were encountered by a small tunnel which was almost pitch black and led to the other side of the cave. But to Mr Alderson’s surprise, Will jumped out of a hole and tried to frighten him. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and Emily was the only one who screamed. So carrying on, we were trying to find a nice, calm place to swim. Unfortunately, the sea was very rough and we probably would of got ourselves killed or have received serious brain damage. So we climbed round more cliffs, and eventually we found a place we could jump in and quickly get back out before a strong rapid would come and swamp us with water. We then got on to a ridge that looked fairly easy, but as we climbed on it a massive wave came and took my legs out so I had to grab on for dear life and hope another wave didn’t come, which of course it did, but luckily on neither of the occasions no one was injured. We got to the top of the cliff and finally we found our beach where we all ran in together and got absolutely drenched. We then got changed into dry clothes and travelled back to the mountain centre in the minibus. No guesses to what happened in the minibus as the usual song was blasted out at the back of the bus. We came back to the centre and cleaned everything packed and had dinner as we prepared for the quiz. The quiz was great fun as well apart from the language quiz where no one knew any on it (sorry Miss Hodgett!). We also collected our awards and certificates to prove we had done all of the challenges. We then prepared for a long journey the next day and went to bed. Overall a fantastic day and a superb week which was exciting, enjoyable and something we’ll always remember.
Louise’s Group on Crimpiau – Friday
Hi my name is Kaan. I am writing our last day in Wales, we went to Mount Crimpiau (Crinkly mountain) and we Abseiled down a rocky slope. We started our journey with a 20 minute bus drive, to keep ourselves entertained we all sang our songs sometimes songs that were not necessarily amazing but when we got there we were all in high spirits. When we got there we climbed the first part without many interruptions or delays but then we started walking in marshland and bogs that was when it all started to go wrong. Most of the way the path was full of mud and little ponds with more mud. We was half way through the muddy path but then there was a person crying for help (“THE MUD HAS EATEN MY FOOT!!!” was the cry), as we all went back to see who it was we found Martin waist deep in the boggy mud. Half of us spent a little time trying to pull him out as the other half was taking pictures and laughing. Soon enough we started scrambling and walking up the mountain, having a little lunch break in between our journey to get to the top of Mount Crinkly. Later on we found out there was more muddy paths we had to go through, but we got through those paths easily and we were at the top of the mountain.
We made our journey back down pretty easily, and then our instructor set us a task leaving us just a map to help us to get to a bridge by ourselves. We had done pretty well on that, taking our time to get to the bridge. After that we had one last task to do, we went abseiling down a short cliff which everyone found was fun. The bus journey back was another 20 minutes before we all got back, sodden, mucky but cheerful.
We had out last dinner at the Kent Mountain Centre, after that we had certificates given out and had a quiz at the end of the night.
My time at the Kent Mountain Centre has been a great experience and an enjoyable time, and I would recommend to come on this trip.
Jez’s Group On Tryfan
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
Tryfan Terror
Hello this is Lauren and Alice here to tell you about our day climbing Tryfan. Lauren was not going to climb Tryfan because her ankle had been hurting all week and she didn’t think she could do it, but she was determined to and went anyway.
After the 20 minute mini bus journey we started the accent up Tryfan. Our ears hurt from having the radio full blast to block out Lauren and Poppy’s amazing singing and Alice and Lara’s great backing singing. We managed to sing louder than the radio and I’m sure everyone enjoyed our singing…
At first it was a slippery grass slope, but we could see the rocks ahead. With many slips and falls we had a stop for lunch and a drink then started the steepest part of the climb.
After this slope we started to scramble up the big slippery rocks, the rain wasn’t helping, but the rainbow was really pretty. For every 10 steps everyone took Robert would take one and did not help Poppy with the constant reminder that If she took one wrong step she would plummet to her death and go SPLAT!
We finally made it to the top and had a picture taken next to the Adam and Eve rocks. Lauren was pulling an interesting face. Also on the top we saw Boderick the eyeball eating seagull. Here is the story of how ‘Boderick’ started…
Halfway up Snowdon Lauren decided to feed the seagull her dried fruit to look good. Keith came up to her and said that if you feed the seagulls then when you get to the top they will peck your eyes out. She stopped feeding them immediately and another Welsh couple started feeding them so she warned them not to or they will have their eyes pecked out. They gave her a strange look and so she thought it was because they spoke Welsh. When Lauren and Poppy eventually got to the top ‘Boderick the seagull’ squawked at them and they ran the last 100 metres. When at the top they asked to kick him off the edge and Keith said no in case he falls on someone’s head and everytime we saw a seagull from that point we were in HYSTERICS! We all teased Poppy for her seagull-in-distress-like-laugh. THAT’S THE STORY OF BODERICK!
By this time we were all soaked and there were many slips on the way down. We were told that if a rock fell we had to shout ‘BELOW’ to warn people but Alice pointed and shouted ‘DHISFHDSODSUFBF’ and Lauren screamed ‘AVALANCHE!’ because we both forgot the word. Luckily no one got injured. Tom and Jack threw themselves down the hill on their bums.
BEST TRIP SLIPS: Alice falling into a stream, Lauren falling 17 times walking down one hill, Lara falling many times down the stone stairs, Robert falling into a waterfall trying to get water, Jack falling a massive hill along with Tom and of course when Lauren was dying for the loo and Poppy was wearing a new tracksuit and fell on a slope of mud and slid the whole way down.
We’ve had a great week and a great ending with a quiz and photos shown on the screen including one of Lauren with 14 starburst in her mouth and many more mugshots. We’ve made great new friends and we’ll always remember our memories together. THANK YOU KEITH AND MIKE WE’VE HAD A GREAT TIME AND IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THE SAME WITHOUT HAVING YOU AS LEADERS. No Mr White, you are not the best leader, ours were and we also had the best team!
Mike’s team went to Tryfan…..
Today Mike’s team went to Tryfan, a really good day out was had by all. This is a mountain measuring 915 m and it requires ‘scrambling skills’ and its fair to say, alot of courage. Poppy and Lauren saw Broderick again at the top – it’s a long story, and we established that Tom has a soft spot for the actress Emma Watkins. We saw Prince William again flying his helicopter but thankfully all made it back down safely again without needing his assistance.
Thanks from me to all of the group I have worked with during the day activities and all of those who have been present on the trip. A big thanks to Mr Alderson for arranging such a great week away where Dane Court Students have yet again shown that they are a positive group of young people.
Keith
Wheels on the Bus
On this fine day or not so fine in the morning we woke up at the breakfast bell. Today we were probably the most tired we’d been so far when waking up, but the idea of getting soaked in the gorge changed that.
After breakfast we were told that we were going to go gorge walking. It was about a forty-five minute drive to the gorge, we were so tired we (Charley and Róisín) fell asleep. After a bit of lunch we got off the bus and had to get on our harnesses which like yesterday made Charley feel like Spiderman…
We went through the forest and found the bottom of the gorge, which was full of rocks and lots of small waterfalls with a huge one at the end. It didn’t take long before we started slipping off Elliot, being the first man down. It was pretty challenging to get up at parts but the worst bit was definitely the first time you fell in one of the pools and the cold water got into your boots! When we were about 1/3 of the way up Louise set up another zip wire thing between two of the rocks which was really fun.
Next we went up a few more waterfalls which were hard because we couldn’t see where the next rock was and sometimes we had to pull ourselves up. Next Louise said we could go the easy way or the hard way and we ended up going through the elephant butt. It was basically just two huge rocks leaning against each other half in water with a pretty small hole in the middle. We had to sit down up to your waist in FREEZING water and slide through the hole which was quite scary because we were worried we couldn’t get through half way. It was optional but most of us did it anyway. We then climbed up another small waterfall slipping another few hundred times. When we were pretty close to the top, we took off our harnesses and left them on a patch of grass, it was great not needing to carry them anymore. Going up the last few waterfalls was hard as there was so many deep parts which we didn’t know were there so we fell into pools almost up to our chest. D:
Once we got to the top we climbed along some of the rocks and slid into the water. We walked underneath the waterfall on stepping stones and there was a gap which was the shape of a chair which was really cool because we could sit in it and stay dry for a few precious seconds before getting into the really deep pool. We thought there was more stepping stones but there wasn’t so we were both on the last one screaming at each other not to let go because we didn’t want to get cold. Eventually we manned up and pushed each other in. We were standing neck deep in the freezing water as Kaan floated past us on his buoyancy aid and couldn’t get back up. We wish we could say that we helped him.
Then we swam and walked awkwardly full of water to the water fall we had recently climbed and slid don it like woooossshhhhhhhhhhh and then we climbed back up for another go! We then climbed down more of the smaller waterfalls that we had climbed up to start with. Once we had finished and Kaan had finished floating we got back to the grass patch where we had put our harnesses previously. Then we walked down the slope where we met the other group and we walked back down to the car park. We got dressed in the woods, the girls on one side and the boys on the other.
Back in the coach we had more lunch before driving back to the centre. Today charley decided to sing the wheels on the bus again in attempt to get them to put the radio on of course every one joined except an odd few (Kaan bashing his head against a window). After the tenth verse we admitted defeat and gave up. Kaan was hitting Róisín with his hat so she stole it and he went metal but he EVENTUALLY got it back.
– Charley and Róisín