Loch Insh 2014
Day 3
Today’s blog entry will be a short one…mainly due to the fact it is very late and everyone (me!!) is very tired!
We had a great day of weather today…..sunshine and warmth…and not the rain that was expected!
The children had a great day again and have taken part in all the activities so well.
Poor Mr Jenkins spent ALL day biking…..but enjoyed it very much and had racked up over 20 mils by the end of the day!
Again the day started with breakfast and packed lunch preparation!
The children are beginning to moan about the steps and we try to vary the route when we can! There were six different activities today tackled by some or all of the groups depending on their timetable.
Miss Clark’s group were biking, RaftBuilding and finished off with archery. Mrs Forrests group started with archery, then built rafts and finished off with a great after dinner cycle round the hills! Mr Taylor’s group had canoeing, biking and then skiing to finish and finally Mr Donaldson’s group were biking, kayaking and skiing to finish.
The new activity for everyone today was biking. This is back on the programme after it was missed out last year, It is great to have it back as this is one of the activities that some love while there are some that don’t look forward to it….including some of the staff!
First of all they get their helmets and make sure they are adjusted properly before getting a high vis vest and then lastly their bike! They spend some time in the practice area checking the brakes and ears to make sure they are happy with them. Then they head off on one of the three or four routes the instructors use. Groups doing a full 2.5 hour session have a rout of between 6 and 8 miles while an evening session is around 5-6 miles.
It is not long before some are off their bikes and are pushing it up the hills! This can slow the group down but they soon get the hang of the gears and it gets better as the session goes on. The routes have a mixture of on road, off road and rough tracks to contend with and each one has its own particular safety issues and skills required to deal with them. Although the children find this difficult at times they get a great deal of satisfaction from completing the session knowing they have cycled a good distance. The key thing is having a full water bottle with them so they can have plenty of drinks as they go.
The two archery groups enjoyed their activity and again some took great pride in going from missing the target initially to becoming very good at regularly scoring points. This activity is trickier than it looks and lets you appreciate how skilled these elves are in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films with their bows!!
The two groups building their rafts had as much fun as yesterday’s groups and again most ended up getting completely soaked as a result!
The skiing groups again split between the snow boarders and the skiers! They worked hard at over coming fears and the effort of getting on and off the boots they have to wear for the activity.
Tea tonight was the traditional end of week BBQ! This was an inside BBQ as it is quite not the time of year for preparing the BBQ outside. They had soup, burgers in a bun along with chicken legs and a variety of salads and veg with a choc ice to finish.
Our groups had evening activities while the other schools squeezed in to the bigger hall for their disco. I think our plan was the sensible one and we gate crashed the event at the end to see the video and for the children to be presented with their certificates. The video was great and they enjoyed looking out to see if they would make an appearance in it.
After that and before we tried to do some more packing to help us tomorrow we also had another birthday to celebrate! Jack, from Strichen, will also be 12 tomorrow and so we celebrated our second birthday in two days! This time we had been secretly provided with cup cakes for everyone to help Jack celebrate! He too blew out all 12 candles in one go!
So, now we face the daunting tak of packing and tidying up ALL before breakfast tomorrow! They have been well warned to try and not get wet in their morning activity to avoid the problems of trying to deal with this just before we leave!
Anyway, we shall see!
We are looking forward to heading home tomorrow and we will update the info line and the schools with approximate times of arrival!
One more sleep!!!
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