Adventure Training: Easter Holidays

by Zach Choppen


This year's adventure training was incredible. Getting up early on the Saturday morning create a few tired faces that slowly wore off during the day. After an exhausting journey (and a Maccy D’s,) we arrived at our destination. After unpacking and settling in to our rooms, we had a brief talk and went of to our first meal at RAF St Mawgans (which was very good,) after the meal we start to plan our route cards for the next day walk this took sometime as most of us were trying to learn the basics.

The next day was day of lovely weather, and on my part brought a very enjoyable walk, that evening was incredibly to the night before where after one hour of relaxation, in other words a shower rush, we headed off to dinner where we were treated to another really good meal. The evening brought another route card, this time without help from the senior’s and was a session of complete trouble and frustration where the cards always seemed to have mistakes in. After the help of Mr Harris and the senior’s we manage to complete them in time for a quick game of cards before bed.

The third day of the trip was another amazing day with sun and a light sea breeze and another incredible walk with countless numbers of stunning cliffs and coves, however it was this day where we had to say goodbye to Mr Smith as he was going to meet the Queen! We all thanked him and complete the last stage of the walk with weary legs. That evening we did something different (not route cards!) Mr Harris spoke to us about the rest of the week, but surprise surprise we weren’t to our own devices that night, Mr Harris and Mrs Carter produced a fun game that we all enjoyed greatly. We were given a list of historical events that we then had to act out for the other teams to guess.

It was climbing day and all of us got up early thanks to Seb’s habit of hoovering the hall at 6:30, forcing us awake. Breakfast was amazing as usual and we all got into the minibus to get driven to this weird rock with a chapel on top, the climbing was incredible and it required a lot of skill and determination. The was a mixture of difficulties setting out from moderately hard to ‘that is not possible’ hard, but the whole thing was really fun and exciting even though the rain and snow gave us brief visits. After dinner Mr Harris and Mrs Carter provided the entertainment again, it was call my bluff this time this resulted in Team 2 winning with Team 1 coming second and Team 3 falling at last. :(

The fifth day was the kayaking, The weather had finally turned nasty, after four days of almost perfect weather, the wind was strong and the sea rough but we all set out in our kayaks, it was cold and the wind didn’t help much but Mrs Carter always found a way to get us moving, we did lots of little runs though the rocks and while the spray was cold you only had to wait until you fell into to be really cold. After lunch we split up some going back out onto the water and some staying onshore to look after the boats and explore (and it was a bit cold.) That evening we were given some bad news we were to get up even earlier and do some jumping into the sea (before the sun was even up.) We also did small quiz for Mr Harris and Mrs Carter. Mrs Carter was crowned winner of the ‘How well do you know your cadet Award’.

The last day we got up extra early and as we left our bullock, all ready to leave later that day, There was frost covering the ground after a breakfast where we were all really hot (we were all wearing our wetsuits) we left to drive down to the coasts were we waited with mounting anticipation for the ‘big jump’. After an hour and a half of fun we finish cold and numb but still enthusiastic (whats better than jumping into the Atlantic Ocean to wake up.) we got changed and headed back to the camp and packed up ready for the inspection of our bullocks. The inspection passed without incident and we left earlier than expected and started the long drive home. Stopping at the legendary Maccy D’s on the way.