Dane Court KMC Blog

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

On Friday morning our adventure began with a sausage, tinned tomatoes and a hash brown then we handed in our boots and gloves as we were not going to need then for the rest of the trip and we then had a 45-minute drive to the gorge. When we arrived at the gorge we parked in a car park across from the beginning of the gorge. In the car park we sat in Mary’s minibus having a part of our lunch. After we had some of our lunch we put our harnesses, waterproofs, helmets and life jackets on and the we headed off into the gorge.

First we started of our adventure into the gorge by arriving at the bottom of the gorge and started to work our way up the waterfalls and getting even wetter each time we took a step. As we headed up the gorge we came across the group hailstones who were working their way through a part of the gorge called the elephants bottom. Whilst we were waiting for them we had a KitKat break. When the other group (Hailstones) had finished taking down their rope and detaching their harnesses, Mary and Mr White set up our rope and one by one we climbed up through the elephant’s bottom on our hands and knees without harnesses because were experts at climbing by this time of the trip.

We then over took the other group because we were too quick for them and carried on climbing the gorge. The first person to fall in the water was Hannah and slowly after Nicole fell in too. We came across a section in the gorge which looked like a slide so we used it and we each had several goes at sliding down a part of the gorge and this is where Summer slipped in and ended up going down the slide another time.

After the slide we had a hard section of the gorge to climb but we all made it through safe and sound. We then came to a steep water fall which we could only go under so we went under. Mary went first and helped us down on to the bolder in the water and then helped us through the water fall. To get out of the waterfall we had to take a swim in a shallow pool and then we had made it through. After the waterfall we were nearly at the top but we had a few more waterfalls to climb but after that we were at the top of the gorge where there was a deep pool of water. So everyone one in our group had the chance to jump in so we all did. It was extremely cold but it was the last day so we all done it and we even got Mr white soaked.

Our gorge adventure came to an end and we found the hardest bit was the last bit and we had to make the way down the gorge but not the same way a different way we went down the steep slope instead which I think half of us ended up slipping down.

When we reached the minibus we were drenched so we and to get changed in to clean clothes somehow so we had to change into our clean clothes, so we changed behind the bushes and that is when the weather got even worse because it began to hammer it down with rain whilst we were getting changed so it was absolutely pointless getting changed. Then we headed back to the centre in the minibus drinking hot chocolate and partying the whole way back.

When we got back we handed in our waterproofs, rucksacks and our hats and then we put all of our wet clothes into the drying room. We then had our dinner which was fish or minted lamb burger with chips and for pudding we either had strawberry angel delight or rice pudding.

After dinner we had an extra 45 minutes to pack our suit cases before our evening activity. Our evening activity consisted of watching two episodes of outnumbered and having a quiz about what we have learnt on the trip and also watching a presentation of all the photos of the trip and then we went to bed at 11.00 ready for our long car journey the next day.

By Nicole Cook