During the weekend of Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd May, 38 Bronze participants completed the expedition section of their DofE award with a further 5 Silver participants completing on the Monday.

The conditions made for a very challenging weekend and one of the hardest expeditions we have run, with almost four seasons of weather in three days. One of the instructors from Ocean Rock, the company we use to deliver our expeditions, explained that “when the weather is like this, the expedition is secondary fun where you might not feel like you are having fun at the time but when you look back in a couple of weeks you will realise how much fun you actually had”. We also had one of the students when hearing a claxon from the local factory ask “is that the tornado warning system?”

Despite the weather, students successfully navigated around the Vale of Berkeley, put up a tent and cooked a warm meal on a Trangia. We also managed to capture the odd smile as proof that they were in fact having fun. Each group walked between 10km and 13km each day. 

Some of the staff volunteers walked the route as the trail walkers to ensure that any groups who went slightly wrong were picked up. Whilst they came back a lot soggier than they started they were full of smiles and also enjoyed the experience. 

Mr Higgs
DofE Coordinator