Bronze DofE: The "real" expedition - The Cotswolds! Day 1...

Here it is. The real DofE expedition! Motivation, determination and encouragement. These words are what you need for DofE, especailly in the real thing. You don't have your supervisor with you on any of the days, so it's up to you to take charge. This weekend was definitely different compared to the practice, from the weather to emotions. However it was so much fun doing it. I've learnt many things over the weekend and one of them was never trust the weather. The forecast for saturday: lightning and rain. Great... Everyone was thinking the same thing, we were all very unlucky about the weather again for our DofE expedition. Everyone was making sure they had their waterproofs out, spare pairs of socks and layers packed. Did we get lightning and rain? No we didn't, saturday was cloudy with a few showers here and there but there was certainly no lightning or heavy rain. We were an hour and a bit on the coach to our starting point. Long Compton. Off we went: me, Lucy, Hannah, Georgia, Frankie, Amber and Emma, our newest member who joined us and took the Moniques place. So we were off, it was half ten and we had been walking for about two minutes before a lady and then a man helped us find the path we needed. I remembered then, in our practice expedition Mr Simmons, our supervisor, said 'You always go the wrong way to start off with!' However we were doing alright, we were just debating on what way to go. So the man and the lady kindly pointed us in the right direction.

Georgia and Lucy are looking happy!

A short stop before we reached the first check point. Hannah
and Lucy look comfy!

Our groups 'focus' was gates. (Thanks Hannah for that creative idea) so at nearly every gate it was photo time. So during this weekend we had everyone posing by the gate to show that we actually had walked through it. Everyone was so far happy. After the first snap shot we had to walk up a hill and that was a sign that it was going to be tough, I knew from the beginning it was going to be a steep climb... Literally, physically and mentally! Just because there's a obstacle in your way, giving up isn't the way to go about it. Obstacles don't have to stop you, if you run into a wall (which would be pretty hilarious if you didn't realise there was a brick wall infront of you) don't turn around and give up, figure out how to climb it, go through it or walk around it. And none of us gave up, which was good because we had a lot more to conquer, not just hills but emotions and the pain from our boots and rucksacks! We somehow we ended up on a muddy, wet and very slippery track, which was shaded by trees which created a tunnel. We slid down the track, filling the silent woods with laughter and the occassional scream from Georgia. No one had fallen over, yet. The only thing that had happened was that I slipped and my foot got suck in a puddle which was pulling me down but then Frankie came and helped me out. Time passed and we had reached our first check point and it was good timing because it was lunch time. (Always the best part) Hannah found a new friend on the way too. It must of been forty five minutes or more before we found the right path, I still don't even know if that was the right way but hey ho we risked it for a biscuit. (There was no biscuit involved, that was slightly disappointing.)

Come on Amber, there's no time to rest and waste!

Hannah's new best friend! A cat!

The pea field which we managed to walk through was rather eventful. Again we filled the silence of the countryside with laughter, well I did. With Lucy and Amber in front and the rest behind, all you could hear was a continuous sentence being repeated. Frankie would say 'tractor track' or 'muddy bit' then Hannah would repeat, then Georgia would repeat. That would carry on all the way down the field, which seemed like forever before we got the end. That was it, after the pea field we were lost, we didn't know what way to go or where we were on the map. We walked trough fields, around fields, we had to turn back on ourselves. It was like we were going in circles, it felt like we weren't getting anywhere and everywhere looked the same! I could feel a slight sense of panic and frustration amongst everyone, however we all had to keep calm and carry on! We would eventually get back on track.

The beautiful Cotswolds!

We ended up in this house back garden! Not bad being lost here!

We walked further on, through more fields and there was a gate with some 'friendly' looking cows in. This moment of DofE will always stay with me. It was a highlight of the weekend! You're probably thinking why on earth would a field full of cows make my weekend?! Well I've never seen anyone run down a field so fast before. So there I was I said I would walk up the field to see if there was a gate and Hannah followed me up so she could called the others if there was a gate. I marched up to the top of the field, the cows still grazing lazily, and there was a gate. I turned around to call to Hannah and the cows were running towards the others as they were all trying to get back through the gate to safety! Then before I knew it Hannah had dumped her rucksack on the floor and sprinted back down the field, waving her arm like some mad thing, she definitely was one then. I was thinking what the hell was she doing? Suddenly this one cow started to run towards Hannah and that was it, I thought the cow was going to eat her and everyone else and I was going to be left by myself with Hannah's flourescent orange rucksack with the man eating cows! I have to admit Hannah running down that hill was pretty hilarious. Well it is now but it wasn't then. After that eventful situatuion with the cows we ended up in someones back garden/field. Then the words came out, the words that I didn't want to particularly hear "We need to phoned Sir. Call schoool" There was no way I was going to call school to say we were lost. Yes were lost, we were lost for ages however there was no need to panic. There was a house which had a drive so there for there must be a road cross to get to the house in the first place. So taking the lead I said we weren't going to call Sir, they can't do anything and the whole point of DofE is to learn to cope with getting lost and to try to find your way back and most importantly NOT to give up, that's not the answer to situations like this.

Luckily this cow was not a man eating one!

We walked down the long drive and me and Lucy went to knock on this houses door. This lady opened the door and the first thing she said was "You're lost aren't you?" So she obviously knew we were doing some kind of expedition. (I think our rucksacks gave it away.) She called her husband down to help give directions and he was telling about his day playing tennis. He finally gave us directions to our second checkpoint and we were back on track. I was trying to make sure everyone was ok and happy. We finally got to the check point and a man in a bright yellow jacket on a white motorbike came up to us. I suddenly thought it was the police so I was trying to think of what we had done wrong! As I was running through the day in my head, thinking we had done something wrong, I realised he had the same map as us and that he was a teacher.Thank goodness for that! He said we were not far from the campsite. So we trudged on, willing to get back before the rain came and finally we made it back.

Hannah and Lucy doing the plank after we saw the teacher on his motorbike!

Relief washed over me and I was proud that we got back and that we had completed the first day. Mr Simmons gave us all high fives and at that moment I thought how on earth did you manage to keep everyone going on the practice expediction, it was hard today, I felt like I was doing his job. I didn't mind though, someone has to keep everyone going and to lead them even if it was the wrong direction. Sir helped us put our tent up because it had started to rain. And that was that. The rain had stopped and we all had hot food and cake because it was Lucy's birthday and it was a good way to end the day.Time, I thought, had gone slow that evening. I gave the best hugs to Natalie and Alice for doing well that day because I wasn't in there group. It was getting on for half ten and we all went into our tents. I got in my tent and a hand randomly appeared through the door of our tent which scared the life out of me but it was only Simmons doing the tent up for me. We were all laughing at Hannah until a stern, serious voice that belonged to Simmons called us out of our tent. That also scared the life out of me because again I was thinking what have we done now. We all scrambled out of our warm sleeping bags into the cold and all the girls had to meet by the toilets because they were a mess and we had to tidy them up. Natalie and some of the others weren't impressed that the teachers had woken them up but it only took ten minutes and then we all dragged ourselves back to bed. And off to sleep everyone went, worn out and happy that we had successfully completed our first day of walikng. We had now only one more day to conquer...

My amazing group!!!