Those in the know realise that I came back home from my actual Duke of Edinburgh expedition early Friday afternoon. Since then I’ve had a party to go to and… well… okay, that’s about it. I have no other excuse other than waiting for my pictures to be developed from Tesco. But I can’t be arsed to wait for them anymore.
On the 12th – Jordan’s birthday – the 14 NSB Duke of Edinburgh-ers set out to a far away town called Abergavenny. Yeah, the place I was at at Easter. We went to the exact place I talked about before, to the point where I could see the place where I waited for my taxi out the window of the room we were staying in the night before the expedition.
We were staying at the top of the Black Sheep pub, which looked dodgy as when I had no choice but to stare at it back in April. In reality, it’s full of nice people. Okay, the accommodation is questionable (For example, bunk beds in reality being two single beds bolted on top of each other with just 4 screws) but I’m not complaining as it was Buckingham Palace in comparison to what we were going to face in the next four days.
We had some spare time, so we ventured into the main town bit of Abergavenny for some food. I was surprised to find there was so much more to the place than what I saw when I was there last. Turns out it wasn’t just a train station and a pub, but a town in keeping with Abington Street in Northampton. Plenty of takeaways, which pleased both us and the teachers that came with us. Seems like they dined on Chinese the whole time. But anyway, I grabbed cheesy chips and beans, and it was lovely, apart from the eyelash in it. Oh, that, and the fact the guy put his head on the microwave while waiting for the beans to cook. I mean, really…?
We woke up, scrambled to make some breakfast. The promised breakfast served to us was a box of corn flakes and whatever previous people had left there. I made do with a couple of slices of jam on toast, thinking that could be stored energy since the Corn Flakes were occupied.
We set off from the car park at the Longtown Education Centre, which again was where I’d been just a few months prior. I even saw Ewan, who gave a sociable nod in my direction when he saw me. At least I’m remembered, eh?
The first day wasn’t all that bad. Mainly flat, which is good for Wales. There was one big hill (which if you hadn’t already noticed, Wales has lots of) which took the wind out of our fresh sails to begin with. A couple of Ainsley Harriot cereal bars and a pasty and I was virtually fine. We scrambled into camp about half an hour late, which isn’t bad considering we hadn’t done this in about eight months.
Then we had our first bit of downhill. No, not on the route, but in morale. In true Welsh tradition, it rained. A lot. Seriously, when you have your next shower, it will not compare in how wet this got us. We had to cook and put up a tent in it, too. That was fun. Richy B and Johnny Morris put up the tent, while I cooked for our little sub-group thing. Thing is, they were supposed to come out to help me when they’d finished, but they didn’t. Bastards. So when Mr H came over in his yellow poncho (who me and Richy B noted that it made him look like a camp Darth Vader) to take pictures, it was hard to raise a smile.
Food ended up being just Smash which three quarters of a block of cheese just dumped into it. Lovely to taste, but sickly after a while. That and the cheese solidified on the bottom of the pan. Great…
Day two and we were off, packing heavy, wet kit and moaning about not getting a proper nights sleep. Our tent was a spacious two-man tent, fitting three people in. Not fun. Richy B takes up a lot of space. Thankfully, he was the one carrying it. Most of what I was carrying was food, so my bag was getting nice and light. 
The second day wasn’t all bad. I think we’d gotten over the what you could call ‘culture shock’ of the first day and knew what to expect. But this was the day with a bigger climb, but a better view. We had lunch just before this big climb and to be fair, we needed it. On the way down, though, it started raining very very heavily. If it’s possible, I’d say more so than the first night.
Gingerly climbing down the hill, we decide to join the wet weather route because it was wet and, well, easier in all honesty. In doing so, we managed to miss Mrs O’Neill waiting for us round the corner from where we split from the normal route. She wasn’t happy, but she got over it. Jo – our Gold assessor – saw us and that’s really all that needed doing.
We practically swam into camp on the second day. The fast group had already pitched their tent and were drying off in this old classroom we had rented out. It was dusty, but most importantly dry. Again, Johnny and Richy put up the tent, while I cooked. This time it was pasta, which didn’t take long, and for the most part the weather held up. It held up long enough for me to make a hot chocolate, which I had been dying for since the night before.
Going to sleep that night was fun. The tent was wet, my sleeping bag was wet, and neither of the other two of my little subgroup wanted to sleep, it seemed. The rest of the slow group were sound asleep by the look of it. I got about 3 hours sleep thanks to Richy B snoring and Johnny Morris scratching his arms for I swear was an hour at least. Ever since then I can’t stop scratching. I hope I haven’t caught something…
Breakfast that morning was porridge with tons of sugar in it. Ideal, you might think, until you realise you didn’t pack a spoon. Porridge with a fork just doesn’t work. It was watery enough that Richy B actually drank his anyway, but meh, I didn’t give up. Johnny ‘not exactly being a breakfast person’ didn’t have anything and I think he regretted it when he found out what we were to walk the third day.
"Along a bit and round the lake" doesn’t sound like a lot, but in reality it was. It was a good ten or eleven hours walking. It should have been just shy of nine hours, but tiredness and the weather held us up.
It rained as we left the second campsite, but within the hour it brightened to blistering sun which we had for the rest of the day. Being the fool I am, I didn’t put any sun cream on (Well, you don’t expect to need any when covered head to toe in waterproofs) and my nose burned. I caught it before my neck burned, though, so escaped lightly. Haha. You should have seen Ben’s neck, let alone Jake’s face from the other group. Ouch.
After a day with no shade and little rest, problems started to arise. The wet shoes from the day before gave me blisters and rubbing on the back of my ankle, which made me annoyed. Tiredness claimed everyone. Helen couldn’t conquer her fears any more by the end, but she persevered and got through it in the end.
We collapsed at the campsite and didn’t get cooking, or to sleep until late. Thankfully the third meal was just boil-in-the-bag stuff. I had beans and bacon, which was surprisingly nice given the horror stories O’Neill gave about them. Ignore the fact the bacon looked like beef, it was yummy.
We managed to shorten the third day to make sure it was eight hours walking only. We finished at a pub in the final village with a name I don’t think I’d be able to type out, let alone say. It was a relatively flat day, much to everyone’s rejoice.
Problem is, we shortened it so much, we were done in about four hours. So we took a good hour or so for lunch and walked the second leg really slowly and basically making light of the whole expedition. Wendy got into a laughing fit thanks to James doing a stupid impression. I guess madness does set in when you’re away from civilisation…
We got in at the right pub about half an hour shy of the eight hour mark, but we couldn’t stand walking any longer. That, and it started to rain heavy again. O’Neill arrived in the minibus to pick us up and take us to another pub, as the one we stopped at was shut. She took us to the Red Lion, which was closer on our route, and where the other group thought the finish was. We got in there to see them lot having a drink and having a friendly chat in the warm. Lucky bastards. We hadn’t had a break in ages.
This was Thursday, and we went back to Abergavenny for the night so none of the teachers had to work the last day. Clever, eh? This time we were staying with a group of Year 9′s.
They stayed in the downstairs bit, where one asthmatic kid had a panic attack and wasn’t even noticed for ten minutes. Thankfully, Johnny Morris and dodgy barman to the rescue, and he was fine. O’Neill and Armstrong were dragged from their meal out at another place to check this kid was okay, but then by the time they got here, most of it was over. So they went back to their food. The kid gave out digestives as a thank you for all our help, which was kind. He was a good kid.
After a bag of chips and a cheeky comment from O’Neill I had to qualify with Richy B what she meant (turns out she heard my sarcastic comment about her being an alcoholic… ahem…) we turned in for the night, and had a nice journey back.
Never have I been so glad to have a cup of tea and a nice properly cooked dinner with vegetables. Ahh, now thank goodness that’s over…
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