Today I am going to tell you about our D of E Gold Practice Expedition. It was from the 6th - 8th July 2012 and took place in the South Lakes of the Lake District.
I'd enjoyed previous D of E expeditions, but had often found myself getting very homesick, so I was quite nervous, wondering whether I would be homesick again this time.
Also, it was a long time since I had last been on a D of E expedition, so I was hoping I was fit enough to get through all that walking in the mountains. I do a lot of exercise, but even if you are fit, a D of E expedition is very hard work and a shock to the system (in my experience).
So, I was slightly nervous as my dad drove me up to Rydal, our starting point for the first day (which was a Friday, by the way). We listened to 1980s music in the car, including "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" by Tina Turner, which managed to get stuck in my head later in the weekend.
We got to Rydal Hall camp site, our starting point, where we had lunch and had our rucksacks checked for weight, then we set off on a mini expedition on a round route that would get us back to Rydal Hall camp site where we would spend that first night.
There were three of us at this point: Luke, Andrew and me. Ruth would be joining us first thing on Saturday. Our instructors Joan and Wayne walked with us that first day, assessing our map reading and navigation skills.
First we navigated our way out of Rydal, through a foresty area, past Rydal Water and up into the hills, where we had lovely views of Grasmere Water.
This photo is from the Internet but it is the same beautiful view that we had.
I wished we would be going through the village of Grasmere, as I love it, but sadly we didn't.
We saw so many foxgloves in those hills. That was probably the biggest factual thing (alongside many emotional things) I learnt on the expedition: how many foxgloves there are in the Lake District. The answer being: a LOT.
I mean, I have foxgloves in my garden. I had thought they were garden flowers; I hadn't thought they were hardy enough to grow all over mountains, but clearly they are. Foxgloves have gone up in my estimation.
We then walked through another foresty area, past a tarn, and into another lot of hills. These hills are my defining memory of this first day; it felt so mysterious and lonely up there; just hills, hills and more hills. It felt like we were on the edge of the Earth.
There was some debate about what qualified as a footbridge and what didn't, and Wayne tested us with teasers such as, "How many lakes are there in the Lake District?" You will find the answer at the bottom of this post.
Eventually we got back to Rydal, where we each cooked our evening meal on our trangia. Mine was pasta in tomato sauce; I'd had it before on D of E expeditions and it brought back memories, most prominently of my night at the epic Gibraltar Farm campsite on my Silver expedition.
I loved that campsite, but Rydal Hall could give it a run for its money! It's a really nice, comfortable campsite, and it had this air of quietness and tranquillity when we were there.
I phoned home, and texted my friend Kylie. I did my teeth etcetera and then went to bed in my little tent.
I had to get up in the night to go to the toilet, and the night sky was so beautiful; the moon was so bright, highlighting the edges of the silver clouds, and the sky a deep blue, and it was altogether gorgeous and very dramatic and I'm glad I got the chance to see that sky.
That was the end of Day 1 of our practice expedition. It went well; I was homesick at times but I survived. Wayne and Joan were brilliant, as were Luke and Andrew, and I couldn't have had a better group of people to do this expedition with. Tomorrow Ruth would be coming, and I was really looking forward to that - she seemed lovely at the training day, and it would be nice to have our team complete.
Hopefully the second day of our practice expedition would be as enjoyable as the first.
Thanks for reading,
Liz x
PS. There is only one lake in the Lake District: Bassenthwaite Lake. All the other bodies of water are Meres, Waters or tarns.
