Gaisce...

In order to get our Gaisce bronze award, we had to complete our record sheet of activities and to go on the Gaisce trip. On Friday 24th 2015, St. Wolstan's 2015 TY group went on the Gaisce trip in Wicklow. We had to bring our food to cook there so everyone came in with big bags. It was quite heavy on the shoulders and the back, I must say. We left the school at around 2 and arrived at the Kippure centre (the place we were staying in) at around 3. We were assigned to our houses and went on the hike straight after. The hike was 13km. It was actually not that bad. The weather was pretty good and not too much rain. The mountains were hardest in my opinion. But when we got to the top, the view was amazing and truly breath-taking.

After the hike which took around 6-7 hours. We went to our houses to cook our dinners for the night. The group I was in, decided to cook enciladas and carbonara for dinner. That's when our home ec skills came in handy. I didn't stay up super late. At around 12;30, I went to bed. I was completely knackered. I set the alarm for 6:30, but I didn't get up till 7:30. The bed was too warm to leave. 

We cooked our breakfast which consisted of eggs, bacon and toast. Our meeting time was 9 and it was already 8:30 and we still weren't ready. We were running all around the place. We did our activities first which was really enjoying. We did abseiling, the leap of faith and archery. The abseiling was a bit frightening in the beginning. We had to stand at the edge of the wall and slowly start walking down while staying in a certain position or else we would of hit ourselves on the wall. The leap of faith was my favorite because we had to climb this really tall wooden post and when we got to the very top, we had to stand up and then jump. Our life was in the hands of other team members. I don't know about you, but I was scared as heck. Also archery was pretty cool. I got a shot close to the center, which I was very proud of. 

After our activities, we got a break for 15 minutes before our second hike. Our second hike was 12km and it lasted around 5-6 hours. It. Was. The. Worst. 

We were practically walking in a snow blizzard. We were all freezing and soaking wet. We walked through every pathway you could think of. We walked through spiky, pointy trees, rocky roads, boggy land, boggy wet land, boggy ice cold, wet land and a snow blizzard. I even saw some girls start to shed some tears. I wanted to quit so bad but where would I go? We were in the middle of no where. 

I don't regret walking that 25km hike though. It was a big accomplishment for us and I was pretty proud of myself of doing it. Although my body was aching, I feel like I can do anything now.