Leavers' Expedition

On the Saturday 16th June, Year 8 arrived at Bogue, near Kirkcudbright by Ed Brown's farm. When the rain cleared, we set up camp. We ate our evening meal (pasta and Bolognese) in our tents because it began to rain again!

Next day, group A took part in a new activity called coasteering, which involved walking over rocks partly in the sea and then jumping off. Les showed us how. The other group went on a long walk on a nearby fell, with Mr. Hill. They spent much of the ascent going though bracken, but this was quite enjoyable. They reached the top of 2 out of 3 hills.

The next day was Monday and we swapped over, with group A doing a different walk. Hannah Byers found a good place to jump off in the coasteering. After a good nights sleep, we set of early for a days sailing at Loch Ken. Everyone found the sailing in Fun Boats great fun and we were all sailing within minutes of the safety talk. We were able to capsize the boats and most of us ended up in the water at some point.

There was an opportunity to do coasteering again the next day and another group went along the coast to carry out a search and rescue exercise. This involved searching for Miss Hogarth and then carrying her a short distance on a stretcher that we made out of odds and ends we had with us.

Other activities were a visit to a nature conservation centre but we found that some of the big cats, such as a Scottish Wild Cat, only had a small pen to walk around, so we thought that this was not a good way to keep large animals. Another visit was to the Cream O'Galloway, an ice cream farm with a venture play area. We all had a go on the zip wire and had an ice cream.

That night, we cooked our own food on small barbeques. There were one or two burnt food items, but mostly, everyone cooked the food really well. This was out last night at camp and we ended with our last camp fire which everyone sat around and told stories.

The next morning we ate breakfast and started packing. It was raining until 10am after which it was quite hot, meaning that we could dry out the tents before we took them down. On the way home, we stopped in Kirkcudbright for pie and chips before we embarked on the long trip back to school. This had been a good expedition and everyone felt tired but glad they had taken part.

We would like to thank Mr. Hill for organising the trip, Les for coasteering, the gappies Jamie and Gabby for keeping us smiling, Miss Hogarth and Mr. Bodger for capsizing the canoe, Mr. May for driving the minibus and Mrs. Sale for cooking our meals.

Jenny Anderton Year 8