Abingdonian 2017

48 The Abingdonian Second Year Adventure Trip Plas Pencelli is an outdoor adventure centre located on the edge of the Brecon Beacons in south Wales. The second year went there over the Easter holiday. We didn’t know it, but we were in for the toughest and most exciting week of our lives. After a relatively long drive in the bus we arrived at Pencelli and had a quick tour of the house. After that we had some free time so we could unpack and get used to our rooms. Then we had dinner; it was delicious! We also had a bit of time after that before our evening activities started; there was a night walk to get used to our surroundings and it was really beautiful. Then we arrived back at the house. We had a few challenging tasks to face but we got through. Then Mr Jenkins and the other teachers had an even bigger task, trying to get us to sleep! Day 1: After getting ready the green group’s first activity was climbing. For me that was the best climbing session in my life, the mountains that we climbed were beautiful and at lunch we also had some brilliant hot chocolate. Our instructors, John and David, were great at helping us to get used to climbing. Everyone was really supportive of each other and those who couldn’t reach the top were encouraged by the people at the bottom who had already climbed it. In the evening we did orienteering. We had three maps that gave us the positions of the stamps and you had to run around with your partner and collect the correct stamps. It was great fun and congratulations go to Marcus Bainbridge and Josh Broadbent who won the competition. Day 2 : In the morning, we did our duties and then the green group went off with six canoes and paddles. We practised paddling and then started the journey down the River Wye, and those who weren’t doing it properly just zig-zagged across the river meaning many were stuck at the back patiently trailing behind them. Then about halfway through the zig-zaggers lost control and turned into our path. We tried all we could to move beyond them but we were going to hit them so at the last moment our instructor at the back of our boat said “right paddle” and we T-boned right into them turning their boat around and almost making them capsize. His excuse afterwards was ‘we were going to hit them anyway so we might as well hit them hard”. It was incredibly entertaining! Then near to the end, we stopped with the other group at a small rapid. We decided to go down the rapids on our back and although It caused us all to get soaking wet, it was definitely worth it. In the evening we were told that we were going to do the Dingle descent. Most of us had no clue what was going to happen. But what we had to do was have a long piece of rope connected to us so that we were all tied in a line. We thought that it would be very easy but it had a catch; we had to walk down a stream blindfolded! The only thing we could use to know our surrounding was our touch and teammates warning us what was coming such as if it was slippy, if we had to go under logs, if there was a tree ahead, and if our teammates told us if they had fallen into the water. Three quarters in and we were allowed to take off our blindfolds, mainly because it was getting a lot more dangerous and slippery. A lot of people fell in the water numerous times. It was nothing like what we expected but it was amazing. Day 3 : That morning we went to get waterproof