News

3 of our Forces students were able to take up the Annington Challenge this Summer with the camps lasting from a week to a month.  Bella’s review is a snap shot into the amazing opportunities that were on offer. 

 

Challenge Accepted – Bella Trewhella – Aug 2019

 

Day 1

I already knew three people going from previous summer camps but on arrival, when we were put into our groups, we were split up.  At this point, I was a little bit nervous because everyone in my group seemed more confident and looked a lot older than me.  Our instructor, Nathan, took us up to our rooms and my group of girls were lucky enough to all be put into the same room because most of the other groups were split up.  In our rooms we chose bunks and we all gelled really well.  We made our way back downstairs and met all the boys.  We then went to the kit cages and chose pegs and got our waterproofs and walking boots.  We then went to the gardens and sat in a circle and told everyone our names and something about us; I told everyone I was an air cadet.  We then went for dinner.  After dinner we walked round the whole site and learnt where things were.  For that evenings activity we stood on a bench across water and had to organise ourselves into alphabetical order and I was first.  After this; the evening was ours.  We went back up to our rooms and talked more.  At 8.30pm we went down for hot chocolate and biscuits.  We had showers and settled into bed.  We were all tired from our long journeys.

 

Day 2

A leader came round and woke us all before breakfast.  We all put on our hoodies and headed down.  After breakfast we met Nathan who told us the days activities; today, in the morning we were doing Jetti jumping.  We went back up and grabbed our towels as well as a spare change of clothes.  We got our high vis jackets and began walking to Aberdovey town.  They kitted us up into waterproofs and buoyancy aids and we headed onto the main Jetti, Nathan went first followed by two boys who had done it before.  I was ready to go…until I looked down.  I started to get a bit scared.  I was the first girl to go.  So I put my nerves behind me and stepped off.  I came back up from underwater and I felt great! I had just jumped off a Jetti! Once everyone had gone we headed back to the changing room got dressed and dry and ate lunch.  After lunch we went and got ice-cream and sat on the beach and ate it.  We then turned one of the boys into a mermaid!  We then headed back to the centre and decided on the to activities we wanted to do which were ‘the challenge wall’ and ‘orienteering’.  The Challenge Wall was a 8ft wall which we had to try get the whole team up. I was one of the last to go because I was good at boosting people up.  I went up on the second attempt because the first time I couldn’t grip the top of the wall but I was up fast second attempt.  In the end we got all but 1 up.  We then had 20 minutes for orienteering.  My group of 4 found 15 of the letters.  After dinner Nathan took us to the sand dunes, where we made a fire and roasted marshmallow and used the sand dunes as a slide and lots of fun.  We went back and began to introduce ourselves to other people in different groups and got ready for bed.  And we all practically fell asleep straight away.  It was a busy day.

 

Day 3

Today, for me was probably one of the most difficult days out of the week, it was canoeing, whilst in the briefing room, we were told it would be a 2 hour trip.  When we started the conditions were really good.  But about 15 minutes into the journey the weather turned bad.  We were going against the tide and wind.  After four hours of hard canoeing and teamwork we arrived back at the Jetti.  All tired out we got dressed and headed back to the centre for some well earnt rest. After showers and dinner it was time to being packing for our expedition that began the next day.  Packing went well.  We were all excited to begin the trip.  So we all went to bed ready and rested ready for the next days ahead.

 

Day 4

The expedition begins! But first of all we went scrabbling on rock.  I tried to take the hard route on all the rocks we went up to challenge myself.  After we had finished and climbed back down onto the mini-bus which took us to our start point to begin our expedition.  It started off fine. It was quite flat to begin with and we were only going to walk 6km.  we all struggled a bit because we weren’t used to the weight of the bags. After a couple of hours, we arrived at the river where we’d be camping for the night.  We set up our tents and went to get water to cook our rations.  We all sat together and ate.  It was beginning to get dark so we told ghost stories while drinking hot chocolate from the ration water.  Afterwards we went to the river for a quick drink and to brush our teeth.  The person I shared a tent with and I wanted to sleep to get enough energy for the next day which would be full of walking.

 

Day 5

It was 5.45 am when we were woken up by the pouring rain.  It was windy and cold.  So cold that by 06.00am 7 of us got into 1 two man tent for heat because everyone’s tents had leaked through and all our sleeping bags were soaked.  We wanted to get on with the walking as soon as we could because we wanted to finish the walking as soon as we could.  Today we needed to walk quite far.  We needed to walk 15km and 750 metres up.  We got about ¼ of the way up before we had to stop for a drink break and by now the rain was so heavy our waterproofs couldn’t stand anymore and we were soaked through to the skin; even though our jumpers and thermals.  All the way up, the smallest in the group was struggling; but we stayed with her as a team to help her.  After the struggles of the morning we were about ¾ of the way up we sat behind a wall all in a huddle shivering but we needed to eat lunch as a source of energy to keep us going.  After our quick lunchbreak we carried on powering up the boggy land.  We made it! 750metres up a mountain the highest we were going to go.  We were so relieved.  We were soggy, my hair was now black with the amount of rainwater it was holding.  We all sat down as Nathan told us that for the first time in 10 years of working for outward bound he was going to have to call the main centre because of the weather conditions which had got progressively worse throughout the day. But it does mean that we’d have to walk another 8km instead of 5 more to a safe pick up point and we’d also have only 3 hours to do so to be there at the time the mini bus arrived to get us.  It seemed ok at the time because from where we were the downhill looked fine and we could probably do it in less but as we started descending it wasn’t as easy as we thought.  The rain water had turned the rocks into slippery ice rings and the tracks to follow into rivers; at some points we were ankle deep in water and other times up to our waists and all points between.  The water was bringing rock debris with it as it flowed down which kept hitting the back of our legs that was the least of our pains.  We were cold wet had blistered feet, water and mud everywhere, dripping (with water) noses and were now covered head to toe with bruises; lips tinged blue and shivering all over.  Some people were even suffering from twisted ankles.  But we had to keep powering on.  Nathan told us to keep going down in the pouring rain and windy conditions until we could see trees ahead.  It could take a while because visibility was awful, I could barely see the boy 2 metres ahead of me. Our backs were beginning to ache from the bags and the reaching down the rocs but we were 40 minutes overtime before we saw the trees.  We were overjoyed because the trees meant it was now going to be flat and we were almost there. But would the minibus have waited for us? The only way to find out was to continue walking; we were used to the pain by now. After walking through the small bundle of trees we came to a small bundle of trees we came to a small dirt track. By now the rain was slowly calming; we walked down the track for around 10 minutes and then around a corner we saw the Outward bound minibus.  We all started to hug each other and jump around because our once glum and non-talkative mood had become a loud, brighter mood.  We bounced over to the minibus and bundled on, we couldn’t wait to get back.  Upon arrival back at the centre, I wasn’t feeling great, I was feeling ill but some pizza made us all feel better.  We then regrouped with Nathan and discussed how we all felt after our near death traumatising experience, he told us we coped well with the walking, weather and keeping each other safe.  We all then had super long showers and went straight to bed; we were all shattered after our super busy long day!

 

Day 6

We were allowed to lay in for a bit to try and recover but then we had to get out of bed.  Nathan told us we were going to have a nice relaxed day and pop down to the beach do a bit of free swimming.  This was a great way to spend our last day; melting ice-creams and sandy toes.  We had a whale of a time at the beach, we relaxed in the sun, raced along the sound and swam in sea; but we needed to get back to unpack our exped bags to get our £10 deposit after some intense washing up, counting and organising we only lost 1 head torch.  The rest of the groups arrived back because their routes were sunnier! That night Nathan gave us our certificates and continued to congratulate us again. That night we had it to ourselves to pack.

 

Day 7

It was time to go. I think that my time on Annington boosted my confidence as a person and I am more willing to put my ideas into a group discussion and it has improved my team skills to support each other and help those that struggle.  I think it has also improved my leadership skills to lead people to do the correct thing.  I would definitely go on the camp again because it was very fun and I made some amazing friendships.  Thank you for sending me on the camp.