Saturday 9^th July 2005

The day of Duke of Edinburgh dawned in my usual early way, at around 6:30 in the morning! I rushed around finalizing the last few things that I needed to add to my already filled bag, and ate a large breakfast, as well as having a last look at the weather forecast; it was going to be quite sunny. I was thankful to have the sun-cream but I missed having a straw hat!

My Mum took me into Reigate to meet up with the rest of the group, and we made our long journey along the roads of Britain and into Dartmoor. We finally arrived at our first campsite and set up camp. We explored the campsite thoroughly, and discovered it had a lot to offer, as it was fully commercialised with a river running along the back of it! While the others went and splashed around in the stream, or at least watched others splash around, I put up the boys tent. When the rest of the group returned, Simon managed to find me an extra straw hat he had in his bag, and trust me, I was thankful afterwards he had.

As night fell, our Inspector (examiner, assessor, whatever you want to call him) came over and briefed us on the next four day’s trek. Some lovely pasta and a chocolate cake later, and we tucked into our beds, all of us trying to not think about the next day.

Sunday 10^th July 2005

The next day dawned early to the beeping of watches as we scrambled out of bed, had a quick breakfast (myself having cereal bars) and packed away our tents. We all then scrambled into the minibus, and drove to our first set off point of Merrivale village.

Our walk for the day was 20km, and we walked past a very large quarry, through rivers and up hills that never seemed to end. Lunch took place on top of the hill, and I had … with some Haribo sweets to share around, which became a famous morale boost throughout the expedition. Finally after hours of walking under the sun, we arrived in Teignhead.

Teignhead was basically an abandoned field in the middle of nowhere. We set up camp and had to collect water from a nearby stream, which we purified with iodine tablets. This stained the platypus (a container which shrunk in size as water was removed from it) turn a funny yellowy colour, and it tasted quite unusual as well. This wasn’t helped by the fact that too much of the iodine in your system caused problems, and put me immediately off the iodine purification system. However, I still drank the water.

The night’s dinner was rice and lentils (yuk!) and custard (which I didn’t eat but which Glyn provided). So after pouring custard on trespassing slugs and complaining about the rice and lentils, we headed off to bed.

Monday 11^th July 2005

We woke up to receive a welcoming committee of mosquitoes and gnats as we opened the tent on Monday morning. Just like Monday’s!! Having to pack up the tents with mosquitoes and gnats swarming around you wasn’t a nice experience, and made you wonder if the reason they were around was because of something on your clothing…

However, the day got even worse when Guy announced that he couldn’t go on because of his knee. It had been playing up all the previous day, but had finally given in after walking over lots and lots of clumps the previous day. After a visit from our instructors (who shouldn’t be confused with our inspector) we managed to equip Guy with a pole, a bandaged knee and drugs to ensure that he was able to continue the 25km walk we had planned for the day. Talk about crazy…

The day turned out to be the longest yet as we walked and walked and walked. In fact, we never thought it would finish, and as the afternoon drew on we were still walking. As we turned around our last bend, the reservoir we had picked for our second night of camping came into view, and we put all out effort into getting there as quickly as possible. If only we had actually put some effort into thinking about the geography of a reservoir… we were walking down the middle of a valley towards a large body of water. What is the likely thing that would also be moving down that same valley towards that same body of water?

Before any of us had even thought at all about this question, we were given a harsh reply, and by the time we had waded out of the river-turned-marshland and moved further up the hill on the right, our feet were squelching and our spirit’s drowned. In a very tired and sombre mood, we marched up to the side of the reservoir and set up camp, with the river now very visibly to our left flowing into the reservoir.

Another evening of water from the stream with iodine tablets processed, and we all placed our socks at the bottom of our sleeping bags to dry them up. Pasta was the dinner for this night, and we gladly ate it, although at this point I was still quite hungry after I’d finished it all off, with nothing to turn to save I eat it all that night and have none for the rest of the week. We got to bed with the one happy thought we all still had, that it was downhill from here on. We’d passed halfway, and done the hardest part ever. Let’s hope that morale and teamwork persevered until the end.

Tuesday 12^th July 2005

We set off the next day on the third leg of our expedition and a second 20km walk. Tufts of grass were highly apparent as we meandered over hills and through valleys, trying to get to our destination while the hot sun beat down on us.

Past midday and we stopped on top of a hill to try and find our bearings. Although we had ideas as to where we were, none of us actually could tell where we were. To say it in simple terms, we were ‘misplaced in the field of reality’. Things seemed to fit and yet didn’t fit. We tried to use the far off telecommunications mast that rose into the air and filled the horizon throughout the moor, but even that was unable to guide us to our current position.

Was it luck, fate or some other miracle perhaps that then led us to seeing another group passing to the left of us in the horizon? We hurried after them, with Simon rushing ahead to catch up and stop them (only to be told off that we shouldn’t have separated our group). Yes, it was another group from the Open Award Centre, Pink group. They knew exactly where we were, which was both lucky for us. However, it didn’t raise our morale as we weren’t exactly were we wanted to be. By about 5km.

However, we finally managed to find a way to the small village which contained the campsite, and having arrived at the edge of the village along a concrete path, reading a sign down a road to our right stating that the property down there belonged to the Military of Defence. We searched the road on our left into the village, only to find that actually the road which was apparently owned by the Military of Defence, led to our campsite.

Having finally found our campsite, we were delighted with what we found. It was a farmer’s field, complete with toilet and tap, such basic things that we had lost the past two days. This and the fact that we only had the last day to go made the afternoon and evening at the campsite a quite happy and relaxed atmosphere, so much so that it’s one of the highlights of the expedition. Check the photo’s out for the feet competition and the clothes line!!

Our inspector also managed to pay us a visit as the evening wore on. The reason we hadn’t seen him before now, he explained, was because he hadn’t managed to catch up with us until then. As he left, little did we know that that was the last time we would see him before we finished the expedition.

With spirit’s soaring, we ate our dinner of rice and sauce (absolutely delicious) and settled down to bed.

Wednesday 13^th July 2005

The next day brought a stark revelation as we awoke to find that Guy had been sick during the night. Having lost all his dinner (and therefore all his food and all the water he had drunk) he was feeling quite weak and didn’t think he could go on.

A quick call to our instructors and they turned up and suddenly he was rearing to go! I couldn’t believe that Guy was still going!! A knocked-up knee, a poor belly and no way of getting energy or water inside him (no easy way) and yet Guy was still willing to go on!! That does that bravery…

The day pressed on as we walked up and over hills, and over annoying tufts on the ground. Guy found it harder and harder to move on, so much so that we bypassed the end of our walk and climbed onto a walkers highway, bypassing our instructor as we did though!

As we walked on we knew the end was near, but it just seemed to go on and on and on!! We were also running short of water, and thirst levels were getting high. As a group of elderly people passed us, Claire managed to get a bit of water off one of the ladies, but most of the rest of us still walked on, persistent in the fact that we were almost there. Guy’s constant plodding with his stick made his walk almost look like that of an elderly man, which made the fact that he had got this far even more impressive that he was still going!

We soon found ourselves plodding along concrete roads, gasping under the heat and the beating sun that was high above us, and then Princetown suddenly reared up in the distance, heightening and sharpening our moods. It was just under half-an-hour or so that we then pulled up into Princetown, and walked along the road to the town centre!! And it was over!!

We slung off our backs, smiles all around, as we were welcomed by our instructors. We sat around milling in the shade, with water and ice cream, and it was a happy summer’s day all of a sudden, with the heat not so bad after all. We watched as other groups came in and heard news stories about yet more groups, and then suddenly it was back to our first campsite. Once there, we set up camp for the last night and had a nice shower, and then prepared for the evening when we would be released into Princetown.

The evening arrived surprisingly quickly, and the group (minus Glyn) set off into Princetown. There we found the most perfect pub to have dinner. It was a small pub, with all the locals in there, and proper bar food. We each had the best burger and chips ever, with Simon ordering more then he could manage! Guy found that it was best for him to just sleep outside, which he promptly did, and which everyone in our group understood, but the locals thought it was quite amusing, and they took pictures of him with their phones... sad to say none of us had phones that actually worked, so we ourselves couldn’t take any.

As I bit into my burger, I realised that it was over. It finally sunk in, that I had completed Duke of Edinburgh Gold. 80km. Wow. I will never forget the experience, and the fact that I did Gold, and to be honest, I didn’t think it was as hard as I had originally thought it would be. So, I will stick with saying it was a worthwhile challenge that I successfully accomplished, and I think Guy deserves to get the Gold medal most of all, because of what he accomplished above all of us.