Duke of Edinburgh Expedition
By Hannah Kemish
Year 11
At the beginning of the school year, some students from years 10 and 11 took part in a Duke of Edinburgh expedition. Although it was a practice, everyone took it as if it was the real one, which will be later on in the year. We were split into two different groups.
The first group consisted of students who had not participated in an expedition before. This group was much bigger than the second group. The second group were experienced students who were familiar with long walks from their PE expedition, which was even more challenging than the Duke of Edinburgh expedition. The team also included Edward, who had never taken part in an expedition before. The first group set off and after 30 minutes of waiting the second group started and were followed by their new team mascot, Charles Xavier, a little puppy dog with curly hair. He followed us all the way to the campsite.
The two teams seemed to race to the checkpoints and, of course, because of their experience the second team always caught up with the first team. The two groups had to wait for their fellow companions and there could be no one left behind. There were some people who dropped behind so the teams had to stop and wait for them. We arrived at the campsite quite late, but it was not finished. We still had to put our tents up and when we had finished that we had to cook our food, then not too late, go to bed.
On the second day we tried to get up quite early, pack up our tents and then have our breakfast. We left the campsite as soon as we had done all we needed to do.
The second day was much the same as the first day, because we walked, stopped at the checkpoints and waited for team members. Very tired we ran to the finish, so that we would not come last.
It was a very exciting and fun two days that I think everyone enjoyed very much.
