Gold Duke of Edinburgh practice, Cumbria 2 - 4 July 2011
This August, CI Kitchingman and I plan to complete our Gold Duke of Edinburgh expedition in Bavaria. Earlier this month, we took part in a 3 day training expedition in Cumbria as part of our award. Having stayed the Thursday night in Keswick, a local town, we arrived at our meeting place early on Friday morning. After meeting all of our expedition group, all of whom were fellow members of the ATC, we swapped equipment and shared out our tents to try and lighten our load, as we would be carrying everything for 3 days.
Our first day was 18km long, after a couple of hours we stopped for lunch as it was already 1 o’clock. We had spent the first few hours walking at a good pace and getting to know each other: there was Rhys from Wales, Michelle from Gloucestershire, Dan and Alex from Leicestershire, CI Kitchingman and myself. After lunchtime it was a lot harder, we began to tackle big hills. We were all different paces, but that didn’t matter because we all waited for each other and stopped when we needed to. At the top of the hill, we stopped for a snack and a rest, the views were stunning, we could see everywhere for miles!
We arrived at the campsite at about 6 o’clock, after roughly 7 hours of being out. We set up our tents straight away, then cooked our dinner and went to bed before 10 o’clock. The next morning, we left the campsite at 9 o’clock, after waking some-one up by knocking on the wrong door to pay for the campsite! We only had about an hour’s walking before we began a very long, strenuous climb (in my opinion). There was no footpath, so we had to navigate our way through bogs and deep grass, which made the climb even more difficult, every time we thought we were at the top of the hill, another peak came over the horizon! We found ourselves stopping every 200m or so. We ate our dinner on the top of the peak, where we met a very keen fell runner! The rest of the day was much gentler and we found ourselves at the next campsite at 6:00 pm.
By the end of the second day, my feet were a wreck! I had begun the expedition with 3 blisters and ended up with even more! We were all a little red to say the least from the sun, it had been a very hot couple days, and walking down a valley for a whole afternoon had left me with a leg burnt on one side! Fortunately we were all equipped with sun cream and after sun which helped!
The third day was much easier, although we were all very tired and our feet were aching a lot! After a couple of hours we found ourselves filling the hills with the sound of music, it was a great motivation for the last few kilometres where we were all very run down!
(Posted: 16/08/2011)
