LOST!

I had my DofE expedition this weekend. Just like before, still with extreme weather conditions, except this time it was a huge heatwave whereas before we had continuous monsoon rain. Another different, and perhaps a more important one, was that this expedition was our final.

Things started off quite well, aside from my ridiculously heavy pack. The general guideline is that you should have no more than 1/4 of your body weight on your back. I had 14 kg and I weigh *whispers* 46kg. Now, if you do the maths, that is quite a bit more than 1/4 of my body weight. The reason my bag was so heavy was because I was carrying the all the tent, apart from the poles and pegs, and most of the trangia. Admittedly, the second day's kit was divided up a bit more fairly, although I still carried more than some.

We got lost a ridiculous number of times over the two day trip. Although we got lost most on the Sunday, particularly in the woods. We managed to get back on track each time, so we still passed. I learnt not to care that we lost. Once I started to relax, I saw the funny side of it. At one point we were walking through the woods near Rushall Farm, just south of the motorway. We knew we had to cross the motorway, which ran straight from east to west. With a great deal of thought, we realised that as long as we continued walking north we would eventually get to the motorway, and then it was just a case of walking along it until we found the crossing. That meant, that it didn't matter that we had no idea where we were and that we were in fact walking through a load of ferns that were taller than me (I know that doesn't really say much), not following a footpath at all. We must have spent several hours in that wood, but we eventually got to the bridge. The misleading thing was, we could hear the cars on the motorway from miles away, so for about an hour and a half, we thought we were only 5 minutes away from the motorway, when in fact we were several kilometers away.

Despite all the getting lost, we still passed. I really enjoyed this expedition, a lot more than the last one. It's amazing how much the weather changes your mood. Yes it was ridiculously hot, but at least I came away from this weekend with a tan.