This week, I’ve been in Ireland, supervising some Gold Duke of Edinburgh’s Award groups along the Wicklow Way long distance footpath. After several warnings about bottomless peat bogs and constant drizzle from several of my Irish friends, we arrived in the midst of a heatwave. The heat has been extraordinarily incredible; the ground is tinder dry and the conditions brutal for hiking. The views have been about as good as they could have been though.
As ‘supervisor’, my role is to ensure that the teams are safe, but at the safe time, not interfering with their expedition. With such wide reaching visibility, Great Uncle Ken’s binoculars helped me keep tabs on them from afar.
Starting from the outskirts of Dublin, we’ve headed south along the trail, camping wild along the way except for one night in a hostel in order to connect to some WiFi to ensure some work jobs got sorted. The check point at Loagh Dan was tantalizing - the waters looked so inviting, but were so far away!
The heat might have been difficult, but I feel that the teams were at least given an easy job when it came to the navigation sections.
Sunsets have been magnificent and on Wednesday evening, Ed and I camped buts below the summit of Scarr after checking on the teams.
It was a bit of a hike, but even though it was late, there was plenty of light and the temperatures remained in the twenties.
After making the summit, I got my tent up and Ed unrolled his bivi bag onto the comfy heather.
And as the moon rise up into the sky, we had a brew by moonlight before the most comfortable sleep.
I didn’t even make it to seven before the heat of the sun forced me out of the tent. It was early, but brilliant to be up in the mountains with views in every direction.
On Thursday we passed through the tourist Mecca of Glendalough. Ice creams were obligatory.
And while looking for one of the teams we had a very refreshing swim in the lake. Later we found one of the teams had discovered a plunge pool and were bathing to cool down. Shortly after, Ed and I found a bigger pool with a water slide so just after they’d gone, we went to investigate. Just as I was getting in, Ed slipped from higher upstream and shot past me in the fast flowing water right into the pool. Very funny indeed. And oh so refreshing!
It was a tough day for the teams and (despite all this talk of swimming), Ed and I did quite a bit of hiking with a rucksack full of water to keep the teams hydrated and motivated. By the time we got to put up our own tents it was midnight.
We were pretty exhausted, but took a few moments to appreciate our moonlight situation over a brew before finally laying down.
It’s been unprecedented, to not be checking the weather forecasts. Needless to say, we woke to another stellar clear sky.
Friday, our final day Ireland was a long one indeed. After checking on the teams in the morning, they eventually made it to the designated finish point, elated and exhausted. We had strategically moved it from the planned place so that they could finish by a river. Boots off and feet in the river were just what they needed! To finish the expedition, we had a meal together on the seafront in Bray on our way back to the ferry. It was a lovely way to de-brief and congratulate, before doing individual reviews and hearing the presentations on the ferry. We arrived back at Holyhead at about 01:00am ion Saturday 30th and it was 03:30am by the time I made it to my own bed after dropping students, equipment and minibusses off. All in a days work though....
No comments:
Post a Comment