Report by Jennifer Russell
For the expedition section of our Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award, Kenneth, Paul, John, Linzi, Gemma, Laura and I decided to do a walking expedition. At the time we thought it would be easy, “a nice wee stroll in the park”. We didn’t realise what we had let ourselves in for! Our practice expedition went well – we walked from Innerwich to Loch Rannoch. However, it was now September 15th, time for the real thing. Sadly we lost Linzi and John due to illness and that was before we even set off!
We were all geared up and ready to go. We set off from Comrie with half our body weight on our backs. Our adrenaline was going and we had decided our aim was to make a “soundtrack to our adventure”. As we walked we thought of songs that linked in with the scenery around us. It began to rain so out came the huge blue waterproofs that we were supplied with, we all looked so good. The weather was miserable and by half way through so were we.
As we were being examined, we were left to guide ourselves along the route on our maps. At one point we lead ourselves straight up a hill (Laura, Gemma and I had to drag ourselves up it) we all thought it was the right path. Oh no! It wasn’t – we had missed the tiny path off to our left. At this point our morale was low and we were exhausted.
Finally at 6pm we had reached our campsite. We assembled the tents and I made the evening meal. As a group we were exhausted and not to mention soaking wet because those huge blue “waterproofs” weren’t all that great. By 11pm we were all fast asleep Laura, Gemma and I having nightmares about the torment that tomorrow would bring.
When we awoke the next morning the little stream we had pitched our tent beside was now a full flowing river due to the heavy rain overnight, our song was ‘Home’ by Michael Buble. At 10am we set off again, this time in wet clothes and boots. We were freezing, our energy was low and there were not many songs being sung. It was STILL raining and by looking at our maps we realised we had to do a river crossing. The two trained instructors that were with us told us to carry on and they would assess how safe the river was when we got there.
We finally arrived at the river at about 4pm after walking for 6 hours. Our spirits were low and we were on the verge of crying with the pain. Well Laura, Gemma and I were… the boys were “fine”. Bad news, the river was not safe to cross we had two options walk back to base or go to the mini bus which was a further 3 hours away. We sang ‘Why Does it Always Rain on me’ and ‘Singin in the Rain’.
We decided to carry on to the bus, although the route was torturous. We walked over marshland and up the side of hills with voles and mice running by us. This was my idea of hell. After 3 hours the mini bus was in sight, all we need now was one final push and we would have finished. The end was in sight. Our song… ‘Misery to Happiness’ by the Proclaimers. We reached the minibus and we were told we had passed. We were ecstatic: we had achieved our Bronze expedition award. Our final song: ‘Proud’.
