First evening
We arrived brimming with excitement. Yes, we knew Dofe was supposed to be hard, but we’d done it before, silver practice had been fine and how much more difficult than bronze could it be? Hardly able to contain ourselves at the thought of a weekend away with our friends, we hopped out of the van and were faced with the countryside. A large empty field, joined at the edges with more large, empty fields. There was nothing but countryside, par from a few empty caravans and a single tree in the middle of our lot, with a lonely looking swing tangled in its branches. Obviously, our first thought was to go and check out the toilets and after being mentally scarred by the monster of a spider waiting for us in the shower block we retreated back quickly, feeling more than ready to put up our tents and settle down. Following this, the evening was virtually uneventful aside from the spotting of some baby rabbits and accusations of our campsite being ‘haunted’.
The next morning
Feeling rejuvenated the next day I woke at six before waking up everyone else and quickly getting breakfast on. Everyone was in high spirits and just wanted to set off, which we did as quickly as we could once the site had been packed up and everyone was ready. The day was warm, but not too hot, which had everyone buzzing and ready to get on with it. From walking through a field or two full of cows (who had, for the record, tried to eat our rucksacks) to resting on bails of hay as Erin fixed her faulty box full of washing up liquid, the morning’s walk had been okay. But as morning promptly wore on into afternoon, everyone began to feel a little more than delirious. When finally into the last hour of our walk, the highlights were seeing a duck, and silently staring at a ‘money tree’ in unison for a long five minutes. Once we were at the bus, a short film was made that encapsulated our delirium with Shannagh stating that “my body isn’t real, and, yeah, the world’s moving, not how it should though”.
Once we were at the camp there were joyous outbursts of excitement, everyone was dying to get to bed, begging to simply skip the afternoon meal and sleep, but this wasn’t allowed or advisable. And to make matters worse as we started to pitch up tents the clouds were rolling in and it was getting dark, the cooking was sped and sleeping bags thrown into tents haphazardly. On top of this, the other group who we didn’t know where less than agreeable, shaking out tents and screaming down our ears, everyone just wanted to go home, our depression added to by hunger and exhaustion; some of us were beginning to crack, and I’ve almost blocked it from memory.
Day two (the penultimate walk)
We moved quickly the next morning, desperate to get out of the campsite that had pained us so much to stay at. Nothing could bring down our high spirits of it being ‘the penultimate day’…apart from the fact that our feet were about to fall off. But this reminder that our feet weren’t as great at coping as we were didn’t halt our progress too much, since the scenic forests to our right and the narrow ditch of a path we were walking took up far too much of our concentration.
After walking for sometime without a hitch we came to halt. We’d made a shortcut across the hill, and in theory we should have come to a road, but all we could see was a mansion of a house. We set off around the building to go and ask if they could help us work out where we were on our map, realising quickly that this was less of a house, and that the horse stables and pearly gates at the front made it more of a castle. However, whilst we were around the front of the mansion we found the road we were supposed to be on and were nearly at the first checkpoint.
Moving on swiftly and silently there wasn’t too much to say about the day, with my notes reiterating:
-Pye’s rucksack pushes everyone everywhere.
-We’re happy the path gets flatter.
-Emily gets a round of applause for finally getting over stepping-stones.
-We get back to the campsite. (Yay!)
-No one seems to know what congregation means.
The campsite was nice, or it would’ve been, had our group not been used to the quiet, non-existence of other human beings at other campsites. It seemed that everyone doing their Duke of Edinburgh, ever, had joined together, and were all queuing around the one sink and two toilets. But apart from that, we were happy to be so close to the end.
Day three (final day!)
I woke up at six, which I had done everyday, it wasn’t an issue, I was used to it by now. Or, I would have been, had it not been for the dark, drizzly weather outside. Forced to wrap myself up in layers of waterproof clothes and taking a torch I trekked about outside, waking myself up and shaking the other tents to wake the others simultaneously. It was the last day, this time tomorrow we’d all be at home, but spirits were running low and everyone hated each other. Breakfast was minimal, made up from breakfast bars and a few badly made hot chocolates and as everyone gathered up their tents it became apparent that there was no style or grace being put into the packing of bags anymore, it was a simple get it together and go home. But we’d been assured today would be okay, it was the manifold path and Mrs Brett had assured us the flatness would make everything a lot simpler.
And all was going well, the group had partitioned slightly, as a few at the front had slightly more willpower than the ones at the back, but we tried to group together and press on. Two hours in, we came to our first check point, which was met with at first delight, and then worry, that Mrs Brett had told us we should be taking only one and a half hours to get halfway in, but we’d taken two. This was greeted with a lot of discussion and some argument to whether we should be stressed or not. But we weren’t about to let this get to us. The group agreed amongst ourselves that there was no point in stressing, we should push on and up, and that we had to walk at maximum pace regardless which is exactly what we did.
Pushing on had worked well; we’d passed the boy’s group (much to our excitement) as they’d taken a slight wrong turn and we seemed to be making ground quicker than we could watch it. We saw horses and cyclists and were happy chatting amongst ourselves before we hit ‘The wall’.
‘The wall’ being metaphorical for crippling pain and a complete loss of energy, one that cannot be helped with sweets or water and that has to be pushed through. Shannagh and I were aware of our current obstacle which we both hit together, and suddenly shut up. Staring hard at the ground as we half carried each-other, arms linked, to the finish. But Fiona, on the other hand, had yet to hit the wall (or had already, she’d kept rather to herself up until this point) and decided to make the best of the situation by starting on her wide library of 80’s glam rock hits, everything from Queen to the Friend’s theme tune was covered, with Erin and Emily pitching in harmonies along the way. Whilst Hannah, Shannagh and I trailed behind in misery; trying to block out, not only, the crippling joint pain, blisters, or back ache, but now, also, the lyrics to ‘Bohemian rhapsody’.
We wanted to kill her, and we weren’t going to deny it, but the end was so close that we could almost see the van. More and more groups of people were walking towards us, and we kept asking each one how close we were. First, we were met with ‘15 minutes, just carry on along the path’ and a lot of smiling, then ‘5 minutes’ from the next group. We could hardly believe our luck at the ground we were covering. We asked a third group ‘10 minutes’, something wasn’t quite adding up, and since our last answer had depleted our high spirits so much we decided it best to stop asking.
Finally, we arrived at the bus, ice creams were bought and devoured, dreadful pictures of Shannagh and I sleeping were taken, and even worse songs were sung to on the radio. Overall, my silver Duke of Edinburgh expedition was an experience, and although you’d have to pay me to put myself through the frustration, pain, and exhaustion again, I’ll fondly remember it for a long time.
We spent the next night in his caravan. (After a small adventure with a bat in the lorry.)
