Bronze Expedition 2005 - Knossington
So you're thinking of D of E, and don't know what some of the challenges are. Well here you can read a diary on the events that took place over a 2 day expedition.
Vicky and Rachael's diary from their "Bronze Award" expedition.
Day 1
9:15am: With Rachel and Vicky arriving first at Knossington pub car park with Karen and Sean not far behind. Not soon after this our assessor Brian turned up to check our bags and ask us some questions about the expedition.
9:30am: With all ours completed Tom and Jake arrive to have their bags checked. Jake who was supposed to be taking the emergency phone realised he’d came with no credit on it! So we decided to rely on our emergency escape routes, which came helpful on the second day.
10:00am: The time we were supposed to leave we were still talking to Brian explaining our routes. Thinking we had them all sussed!
10:15am: After having our very attractive photo done we set off with our heads up high.
11:00am: Discovering we weren’t where we were supposed to be we had a group discussion and Vicky realised we were 3 miles out of our way on the wrong path! The only way to get back on track was to follow the road till we got our bearings.
11:30am: With us wondering along the road we came across Karen and her big green Landrover! She was so surprised to have found us so far out of our way but was pleased to see us.
12:00pm: With Karen sending us in the right direction we set off again hoping to get back on track. However luck wasn’t on our side with us getting lost once again. With a choice of three paths we took the wrong one.
12:30pm: Completely lost we sat down for lunch and scanned over the map. As we all talked about it we realised where we had gone wrong and left knowing the way.
5:00pm: After following the map correctly we finally arrived at our meeting point on the A47, 3 hours late. Karen and Brian were there waiting to help us cross, telling us we had only got 1 hour to get to the camp site. We set off and carried on walking until we reached the campsite successfully.
6:00pm: After picking our spot on the campsite we set up base, while the boys were swinging in the tress.(yes we did see you boys!)
6:30pm: Cooking the dinner on the trangers. We finished eating and went for a wander to find the washing up zone it was at the back of the amazingly large house.
8:00pm: Setting the trangers up for hot chocolate we just sat by our tents chatting, this went on until about 10ish with us deciding to go to bed ready for the busy day we had on Sunday.
Day 2
7:00 AM- Vicky and Rachael wake up in a cold tent! Took the dishes from the day before and started to wash up and wake up!
7:30AM- The girls kick the lads out of bed and prod them into action. We start to pack up our tents and bags and cook breakfast. Yet again on this trip Tom has bought a broken egg and is trying too eat it without poisoning himself!
9:00AM- Finally ready to go and checking over our routes with Brian so as not to get so lost again! Everything seems to be in order and we shoulder our heavy packs and start walking.
9:15AM- Lost already. Not even left Wing and we had gone off track. However a friendly villager was kind enough to point us in the right direction. Everything went smoothly after that with us reaching every checkpoint on time and in one piece.
11:45AM- Starting to lag a bit when suddenly Vicky trips over a style and sprains her ankle. Sean springs into action with bandages and Tom and Jake are ordered to go ahead and tell Brian. Rachael and Sean helped Vicky to limp across the bumpiest of fields to the others.
12:30PM- Everyone in a field eating lunch debating on what to do. In the end it is suggested by Brian that Vicky pulls out but will still pass if she heads the project work. So one man short the rest of us carry on the walk. To make walking more interesting there was a competition as to who could tread in the smelliest gooiest poo. Unsure who won that one but it was wiped across the stile for the next person to climb over! Everything went well from that point with the only slight problem being Jake trying to jump a stream and falling in. The boys carried on doing things like this and pushing each other over on their bags until we reached the end of the walk. Not too off time at 4:10!
