Orienteering

On Saturday evening we were given a map of the youth hostel and its grounds and on the map there were sixteen dots, showing where a plate of wood with some letters was.   As we were sent to find the letters we realised that they were in a huge field as well! Some of the letters were quite obvious but some were extremely hard to find.   One of the letters was down a track that was full of tall grass and stinging nettles.    

    When we had collected them all we had to unscramble them.   Mr Andrews had made a bonfire which we sat around trying to make words.   The fire was bright and crackling, so we ate some cake around it.   And then the teachers said it was past 9pm so we were made to go to bed.

Tomas

Pen Y Fan

Stepping out of the bus into a busy car park at the bottom of the mountain, we spotted Gerry Wigglesworth.   We were put into buddy pairs.   This means we lead the group and look after each other.   So we started off with our first leaders and started the hike up the rocky path.   We stopped every so often and had a drink and a snack.   Topper, our mountain leader, told us about different things like the wind and what pace to go at and Mr Andrews explained to us the different rocks and soils of the mountain.   We hiked quickly and kept our pace strong until we reached the saddle.   This is where there is a peak and the path there goes down, then up to the top of another mountain. This was the windiest point of the mountain because if you stood too close to the edge you could possibly be knocked over the edge.   We were determined to get to the summit before lunch, so we trekked around the side of Corn Du mountain and up to the top of the Pen Y Fan mountain.   We walked up 886 metres of land and we were extremely proud of ourselves.

Isabel

We stepped out of the minibus in a car park just at the bottom of Pen y Fan.   We all put our walking boots and made sure all the laces were tightened.   Each of us got into partners and we shared a map of where we were going between us.   We started to walk the mountain.   At the beginning it was quite hard because it was very rocky and steep.   All the partners took their turn to lead; me and Isabel were together but Hannah and Adele were leading first.   At some point we had to scramble up the large, slippery stones.   Layers and layers were put on as we reached the top.   When we got to the peak everyone was very happy and joyful.   We took pictures of the outstanding view and the sight of the mountaintops.   After a while we started making our way down; it was even steeper than going up, but it was extremely windy.

Julia