It was the last day of our silver DofE practise expedition. We had completed day 1 and 2 and now it was time to face day 3! I didn't sleep well that, somehow I timed myself to wake up every time a train went pass the camp site It was also colder that night which didn't help either. Anyway me and my group was again one of the first to leave that morning. We woke up in fog again and we hoped it wouldn't rain, like the forecast had said, as we put our tents down. Luckily it didn't, it didn't even rain that day! We headed off through fields and then up the hill which was behind the camp site We could still see fluorescent orange rucksack covers from the camp site below. We paced ourselves as we walked across the hill as we knew when had to be back a certain time but we didn't want to wear ourselves out! Me and Lucy pretty much walked together that day and our tops matched too. Our bright green Frisbee tops! Our job was to "bring up the rear" to make sure no one was lagging behind!
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| The hill behind the camp site! |
We were nearly at our first check point. We had walked through a few fields, across the hill, down a track shaded by trees, through a bit of a village and then on a main road. We wrote on our check point cards. On day 2 we decide to write something about each member of the group, we had: Hannah's gone native; Lucy dropped a pancake in cow poo and ate it anyway; Monique... We lost her way back; Kirsty's dead; Nata's stuck in a gate somewhere; Felicity's got a dirty bottom and finally Jo's (me) ploughing through! To be honest I had a pretty gone statement considering some of the others! Anyway we left our check point card on a table and we were off again.
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| Lucy looks happy enough! |
Shortly after stopping we reached a muddy up hill bit of the walk. I'm still surprised that no one fell face first in to the mud. However we did have a few slips and slides and they were mainly from Nata. We walked up through the ankle deep mud to the top... Well when I say top I mean the top of that section of the hill before climbing up the next big hill! We could see another group on top of another hill who shouted down at us to ask what group we were. So I shouted everyone's name and our group number and they replied with a "Harry's group" which didn't help us identify them because there were two groups with a Harry in! They carried on walking so we decided to do the same. The next hill we walked up hurt the most. You could feel it in your legs this time. It was what I call a nightmare! I marched up in front to get to the top of the hill. It seemed like ages before finally reaching the top. but in time we all made it. We had a longer break then. The fog was still over some of the hills in the distance and all you could hear was the odd car driving past us.
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| Me and Lucy's original tops! |
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| Our new tops! BRINGING UP THE REAR 2012! |
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| Fliss having a little nap! |
Our group didn't really stop for lunch, we just got out our snacks whenever we felt the need. Plus it saved us time. We were now on the main hill, again a popular route that people walk. Kirsty, Hannah and Nata in front followed by Fliss, then Monique and then Me and Lucy (bringing up the rear) I would day 3 was the best day for probably because I knew I would be home that night but also because me and Lucy did have a few laughs together, which kept us going through out the day. In the distance we could a about 5 groups from our school sitting together. The problem was they were sitting at the bottom on a hill and it was rather awkward so we decided to quick march up the hill. Before we knew it Tom, Molly and Chris were walking behind us so me and Lucy decided to walk with them for a bit. We walked quite a bit with them, they went up a hill which was rocky and had a steep edge whilst we debating which way to go. In the end we followed them up. We met them at the top before two men told Tom that his group said he went the wrong way. We said our goodbye as we watched Tom, Molly and Chris walk all away back down the hill to re-join their group.
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Tom on top of the hill he had to walk back down!
(He doesn't know I've taken a pic of him!) |
The next bit of the walk was like a roller-coaster. We went up then down then back up again then back down. We had quite a bit to walk down, we started off all in our walking order then me and Lucy over took Monique as we went down hill. We past a couple of cows a long the way but they didn't bother us. Me and Lucy thought it was time to acted out some lines of Miranda... Such fun! We decided to act out the part were Miranda's mum did the laugh of the season which was based on the song poker face by Lady gaga. I said the words: Can't read my, can't read my poker face! and Lucy did the laugh: Hahahaa hahahaa HAAAA hahaaa! I think the laughing hurt more than our feet from walking but hey ho it kept us ploughing through the last bit of the day.
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The end bit of the hill we walked down!
Monique's in the picture somewhere so
have a go at playing "Where's Monique!" |
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| I think this is how some of the group were feeling by the last day! |
The end bit of the day seemed to go on. All I was thinking was as long as were back for half 2 then that's fine. We were on the main road for a bit until a Arthur Terry van pulled up beside us. My heart stopped as I thought they were going to pick us up. Luckily they didn't they were just checking we were on the right track (which we weren't) and if we were all ok. They sent us back up the round then they said to talk a right. I suddenly realised we were on the route we did on day 2. (Where Lucy dropped her pancake in cow poo) I knew where we then and we only had half an hour, give or take, to go.
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| I liked these pumpkins so I took a picture of them! |
We walked along the fields and my feet were starting to hurt. Even when we stopped they hurt more than when we walked so I was glad that we were nearly back. We were in Castleton and we finally made it to the car park. It was exactly half two! The first thing I did was chucked my rucksack on the floor and ran to the toilets. We were the last group back but we didn't make any short cuts and we were back in time. When I came out of the toilets the teachers said there was cake on the side if I wanted some. Cake... what a perfect thing to a wait you after a long day of walking and it was carrot cake which was even better. All I need then was a nice cuppa tea from my mum and it would of been even better. We were also the first group on coach which annoyed the other groups because we were the last back but because we were group 1 we got called on the coach first! It felt good to sit down on comfy sits. We had done it though. The dream team had conquered the silver practise expedition. What fun we had during it too. We just need to do the same for the real thing and then it will be fine. But now we've got a long rest before facing the real expedition in June, but I'm sure we'll get through it. Why? Because we are the dream team!
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| The dream team! |
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| Oh and the dream team again! |
