This year, for the first time at The Abbey, the girls were able to choose canoeing or walking for their Gold D of E expeditions. Gold Expeditions are real challenges but as always our girls were well prepared and ready for what faced them. The canoeists spent four days journeying down the River Wye, including the famous rapid at Symonds Yat while the walkers journeyed across the Brecon Beacons for four days, including an ascent of Pen-y-Fan for many of them.
The routes were planned a few months ago so the girls spent ‘the night before’ refreshing their expedition skills and reminding themselves of the routes they had planned. This was just as well for on day one the walkers faced as challenging conditions as they could possibly have faced! The rain kept falling, visibility kept lowering and the streams kept rising, this meant that they required all the knowledge and skills they had acquired during the training and practice phases to stay safe and complete day one successfully. It says a lot about Abbey girls that even after a very hard first day they walked into camp smiling! They were then rewarded with three perfect days of weather in which they could enjoy the wonderful remoteness and ascend some of the eye catching hills in the Brecon Beacons. All were challenged, and all came through smiling, having shown determination and good humour through the highs and lows of expedition life. In fact the laughter coming from the campsites in the evenings showed that expedition life (and ‘Come Dine With Me’) is to be enjoyed, as was the finish at Mr Godfrey’s favourite ice cream shop.
The canoeists enjoyed their four days on the river with sunshine and mirror images in the water as they worked their way down the beautiful Wye Valley. Gold D of E is a real achievement and all 35 girls passed the expedition section with many a positive comment from the Assessors.
Well done to all the girls who completed their Gold Expedition which, along with the 93 girls who completed their Silver Expeditions earlier in the summer, made for a very successful expedition season!
Enjoy the photogallery.