Silver DofE Qualifier

On the first day, I was dropped off in a village somewhere in the Peak District. One member of my team was already there, and someone from another team, plus a few teachers. We were given a group first aid kit, which I took, and some compasses, and then got to work copying our route for the day onto the maps. The rest of our team arrived after a short wait, and we were the first team to leave the starting point. It didn't rain on that day, and the weather was quite nice, so team morale was high. We did miss a turn, but we carried on and found our way back anyway, which made us the last group (just about). We overtook two groups on the next stretch and saw a police helicopter fly low through the valley, followed by a convoy of 3 more helicopters that I can only assume were RAF, although I have no idea. We stopped at noon to have lunch and then made our way to a cafe about half an hour away from the finish point. We were the second group and had to wait for about 45 minutes before we were allowed to continue (we would've been at the campsite too early to check in otherwise). We were the first group to leave as when we got there, the other group were still eating their lunch. We walked on to the campsite, with the rest of my group messing about a lot. When we got there, we put our tents up and then planned our route for the next day. Most of the groups went to play rounders, but I stayed at the tent taking photos of the campsite. I ate my tea, wandered around for a bit, and then went to sleep.

On the second day, I woke up at about 05:00, got changed and checked my phone; not all the votes had been counted, but Labour had won! I had some breakfast, helped put down the tent, got some waterproofs on (the forecast said it would rain) and then waited while the rest of our group got up. They were awake a similar time to us, but just messed about a lot. We had a much longer route than the rest of the groups that day, so I wanted us to leave early, but we ended up being the last group to leave. As I walked down to their tents at the time we were hoping to leave, one of them still had '6 sausages and 4 eggs' left to cook. About an hour later, we finally headed off, and it was a very nice walk. There was no rain, and the sun was shining most of the day. We made good time, had about 45 minutes for lunch on top of a hill, and then walked to the village about 30 minutes from the campsite. We met our head of year and another member of staff in the village, who informed us that we were the last group to pass through (not a surprise given our route) but that most of the other groups had got there so early they were given much longer routes for the final stretch. Because of our longer route in the morning, we had the most direct route to the campsite, so were the first group to make it there. When we arrived, we put up our tents and copied our route for the final day onto our maps. The weather stayed nice, although it was forecasted to rain in the late evening, so I went to bed early.

On the final day, everybody had virtually the same route. I woke up at about 05:00 again and ate breakfast. We got our tent down and refilled water bottles before waiting for the rest of our group, who had promised us we would be the first group out. After a long wait, we were the second group to leave, but only because one of the boys was too busy with his girlfriend, so took too long to get back to us from refilling his water. We had a good route and didn't go wrong anywhere, while seeing some really cool, hidden places, like this bridge in basically the middle of nowhere, although the weather was quite wet at times. And windy. We stopped for lunch at about 11:00 (not my choice), and that kept us going until the finish point. During the walk, we had to walk up a very steep hill, leading us across a field and into an HSE site (the Health and Safety Laboratory, Buxton). This section was great, as they had marker posts every few metres to show where the footpaths went. Eventually, we left the site, back into regular fields, and arrived at the finish point, where I finished my lunch and waited to be picked up.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or want some tips for DofE, please don't hesitate to get in touch. Now, on to Gold!