Year nine went on a sport & adventure trip up to Ardales for three days from the 24th to 26th January. We left on the Wednesday morning at 9:20 by bus, the trip took just over an hour. The place where we were staying was right next door to a huge lake, the views were superb. When we arrived we dragged our luggage (we had all overpacked a bit!) to a fenced off area in the campsite where we had to wait until the monitors found the keys. The chalets we were staying in were brilliant, they had one bedroom with two beds, a table, chairs and a cupboard with cutlery etc. The groups were four people to a room. The monitors were only between 19 and 25 years old.

We had a bit of time to rest and then Mr Izatt sorted us into four activity groups. My group had 10 people in it. The monitor who was with us at the time was called Spanner(?) so we called ourselves the ‘toolbox’. We started our first activity at 2 o’clock. My group did ‘problem solving’ which entailed using communication skills and co-operating with others, we all enjoyed that. One of the problems was called the Spider’s Web which was a long rope wound around two trees, which were about a metre apart, in a way that made it look like a web. We all stood on one side of the web and we had to pass everyone through the holes without touching the rope or using the same hole more than once. If anyone touched the rope we had to start the whole thing again. After this we had some free time before a dinner of BBQ sausages and macaroni. We spent the rest of the evening visiting each other’s rooms.

Next morning we woke up at nine o’clock and prepared our own breakfast. At ten we started our activities. My group did kayaking which was by far the best activity. We had to get all geared up and ended up looking like fluorescent penguins, waving our oars around trying to get the knack of paddling. We got into our kayaks and were launched into the massive lake by the monitors, it was really brilliant! After a few exercises we all had to line up facing one way and hold onto the kayak next to us, I was on one end. The monitor thought it was fun to make us get out of our kayaks and slide up to the front to kiss the tip of it. Seeing that I was on the end I obviously fell in, the water was not exactly warm! We then had to stand up and do a Mexican wave. It was all brilliant!! We had a shower and dried off, had lunch then moved on to our third activity. We did the blind trail which was nothing special, only being blindfolded and following a rope with obstacles in the way. Dinner was another BBQ, this time hamburgers, mmmm!

The next morning we went abseiling!!! Abseiling was really good. We abseiled down a small cliff about 100-150ft high. After lunch we cleared up our rooms, packed and left happy and exhausted, some of us still damp from the day before!! I think that the trip was excellent - exciting, fun, tiring, thrilling and a great success. The food was great, the monitors were great, the teachers were great - everything was great!!!!

Chelsea Sutcliffe Year 9