24-26 March 2023
It’s always a privilege to be able to support enthusiastic young people on their Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition challenge. This weekend was no exception and it was particularly exciting to be involved again with the Silver Award participants having missed out last year because of my ankle fracture.
We enjoyed two nights camping and two days walking in East Devon. I have to confess that despite being “on the doorstep” I have walked only rarely on Woodbury Common. Over the weekend I realised what an important omission this has been. The common includes large and rare pebble bed heathland habitat which is of great ecological importance and is a Site of Special Scientific Interest within the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The students learned a lot and appeared to have plenty of fun as well as to work hard.
The campsites were waterlogged and it poured with rain on the second night. However we were fortunate that there were only a couple of rain showers while we were walking and it was dry to take down our tents on both mornings. The girls’ team was particularly efficient at putting up their tents on the second evening.
I was asked to track the girls’ team and another volunteer worked with the boys’ team, while the member of school staff in overall charge kept an eye on the whole situation. The girls remarkably managed to transport a raw egg safely from beginning to end and photograph it at strategic points. The egg had been laid by a hen belonging to one of them and the shell was decorated with a face.
They took numerous wrong turnings but on every occasion they worked out where they had gone wrong and regained their route. Unfortunately part of their planned route was along tracks in a wood which turned out to be private so I guided them along a deviation which was planned jointly by myself and the team members. I missed meeting them at one checkpoint where they were expecting me as the track was temporarily blocked by a herd of cattle including a cow with a young calf being moved by the farmer and I had to wait. However the team left the checkpoint at the time on their route card, meeting me a few hundred metres further along. They recounted numerous mini adventures including some rather too close encounters with an electric fence!
They reached their destination on Sunday afternoon, to be reunited with their families, looking cheerful and continuing to work well as a team, although much more muddy and dishevelled than they had been on Friday evening. Hopefully the experiences and challenges of the weekend will increase their confidence and self-reliance as well as inspire them to go out and about in the countryside in the future in order to promote both physical and mental health. Of course, not forgetting that it’s also a vital part of the journey towards gaining their Duke of Edinburgh Awards!
Where's Kathryn? 