The Duke of Edinburgh scheme has been running at KTS for over 30 years. Thousands of students have embarked on DofE over the years and at present over half the school take part; an incredible statistic that few schools in England can match. Our intrepid explorers, Ben Buky and Sasha Mills embarked on the Bronze award…
Over a hundred students arrived in the stunning Lake District for their first assessment expedition. There was an air of confidence surrounding this cohort after their February training and the practice expedition in April. Our brave reporters were ready for anything, almost.
Sasha Mills, Sunday 25th April
We arrived at our first campsite on Saturday evening, and although the weather had been predicted to be wet and rainy all weekend, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The next morning we packed away our tents and were taken to our start point by the minibus.
The first stretch of our walk took us through a picturesque forest and over some small hills. The weather was gorgeous and sunny, so our walking group stopped a couple of times to shed layers of clothing.
We stopped for lunch in a small forest with a babbling river running through it. My friends and I ventured down to the river to wash our hands in the water. I balanced on a rock and leaned forwards. The rock wobbled. Splash! I fell straight into the freezing water. Thankfully, the clear sky meant that I soon dried out, and we continued on our journey to Burnmoor Tarn.
We were relying on two people in our walking group to read the map and our route card, as the rest of us had no navigational skills whatsoever. This led to our group getting lost and walking through a huge valley, along the River Esk. By this point in the journey we were all becoming tired and gloomy. This was not improved by the fact that our walk through the valley was riddled with boggy areas of grass (our boots soon became soaked) and large ridges of rocks that we were forced to climb over. At one point we had to jump over part of the river, and in order to do this we needed to take our rucksacks off and throw them across first. However, due to my complete lack of arm strength, I didn’t throw my rucksack far enough and it landed in the river just like I did earlier. This led to several of us wading through the water to retrieve it; my tub of Pringles had turned to mush.
The final stretch of the journey that day was the hardest. We struggled to keep morale high as we didn’t know if we were going in the right direction. Eventually, we ascended one final hill and found ourselves just 200m away from Burnmoor Tarn, our finishing point.
To our surprise, the detour away from the planned route had actually been a shortcut, and we arrived at the campsite first. It only took us a couple of minutes to pitch up our tent at the top of the hill, and we had an early dinner. We spent the evening outside on the hill facing the lake as the sun went down.
At night the temperature plummeted and we woke to find our boots and socks covered in a layer of cold, damp frost. In an attempt to dry out our clothing we lit the gas burner and heated our socks and boots over the flame. This was not a good idea and my friend’s boots caught fire.
The final part of the walk was short and scenic. My favourite part of this day was the beautiful river we walked by near the town, which was a bright shade of turquoise. We encountered many large flocks of sheep which were, unfortunately, terrified of us.
Finally, at around 11:00, we arrived at our end point and with a sigh of relief we took off our rucksacks and jumped into the minibuses.
My DofE experience was enjoyable overall and I’ll always remember it. While we encountered challenges along the way, in my opinion this made the journey more challenging and fun. I hope to continue doing DofE through to Gold.
Ben Buky, Sunday 17th May
After a long journey on the Saturday we arrived at the Fisherground Campsite. Here we could practice putting up our tent and ready ourselves for the wild camp the next night. On Sunday morning the weather had changed and huge rainclouds were approaching. The warnings of torrential rain were coming true. Spurred on we quickly packed away our tents into our rucksacks and drove to the start point in an effort to beat the downpour. With over 16km (10 miles) to hike over rugged countryside, we had a hard task on our hands.
It was a fantastic day and the views were amazing but with every mile the sky got darker. Our journey included an ascent of Hooker Crag in the Muncaster Fells before descending through forests and arriving alongside the Screes of Wastwater. We continued through the valley before climbing up and over the head of the valley and getting our first view of Burnmoor Tarn. However, the day’s journey wasn’t over yet, the final few hundred metres were extremely boggy and slowed us to a crawl.
My group was the first to arrive so got first choice on where to pitch our tents. We decided to place them just at the start of the bank, on a slight slope. We hurriedly put up our tents. It wasn’t long until the next group arrived and in the end all but one group had their tents up before the rain. We cooked and scoffed a quick dinner before the deluge. Once the rain started it never stopped, from 5pm onwards we were stuck in our tents staying dry. Most people only left for a toilet break. Morale sunk as we lay listening to the rain thumping against the tent. It was grim but at least it couldn’t get any worse.
Oh, yes it could! At about 9:30pm one group suddenly became aware that the ground below them had disappeared! The dip we were camping in had become a river and their tent was right in its path. After moving onto higher ground everyone settled down and went to sleep.
By the morning everything was soaked. Plus, the rain hadn’t stopped; in fact it had just got heavier! I had soaked boots and my bag was also sodden, the contents inside only kept dry by the rubble sack I lined it with. However, it was my job to carry the tent and, after its soaking, it was twice as heavy. We set off for a shorter but wetter day of walking.
The rain, however, proved to be a blessing in disguise. Almost all the footpaths became rivers but the best bit was that the rain had caused all the actual rivers to swell. This made the countless river crossings much more interesting.
The rain didn’t stop all morning, which caused Mr. Glover to shorten the route due to the impassable bog on the last stretch. Once again our group was the first to finish but not without a fight. An impromptu race lasted almost the whole journey, which in a weird way lightened our spirits. By the time we reached the finish over 20 hours of rain had passed, almost everything was wet but our spirits weren’t dampened. We felt proud of withstanding everything nature could throw at us. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.