Spotlight on our Residential Adventure Camp

Wow… what a week!

It was another fabulous week running our summer residential adventure camp. As always, the week was action packed with adventurous activities and all the children worked well together.

Coaches, Mark, Luke, Liam and myself have been super impressed with the teamwork on show. It is not always easy to spend 24 hours a day with someone you may have never met before, but from our younger children to our older ‘team leaders’ it has been a great mix of characters.

After setting off on Tuesday, everyone was pretty excited and looking forward to the day ahead. Once we arrived at Shining Cliff, it was then a 20 minute walk with all our gear to the centre. Unfortunately, the path is rocky and there are no lifts or escalators, just you and your bag for the week! Understandable, some took longer than others, naming no names… coach Liam… But eventually, everyone unpacked, sat down for lunch and then was ready for our first adventure.

Day 1 is usually a case of getting used to our surroundings. So, we set off on a walk around the perimeter, and to see some of the ‘hot spots’ in the huge woodland. Once back, we had some mountain biking to do. After a quick change, kids were ready to roll… It was a short drive to Middleton Top, from here, we picked up our bikes, went through the safety briefing and then set off on our route.

Once we finished the ride, it was back to the centre to prep dinner. Tuesday night was our BBQ night, so everyone needed to find a large amount of wood to burn on the open fire. This is a great chance to see who are early team players are…

Following this, Wednesday was spent at the Hollowford Centre in Castleton. Activities that day were the low and high ropes course, plus archery. We later went back to Shining Cliff for our dinner and a summer night walk.

Thursday for some was the main event… Our canoeing river trip! As usual, some got a little wetter than others, Luke’s excuse was he was just checking for crocodiles! Again though, this was a brilliant activity shared by all.

We finished Thursday night again around the camp fire, this time toasting marshmallows and discussing our week. It really was a great time to chill out and talk about everyone’s experience and their own best bits.

Our final day… After packing up, we finished with some bushcraft activities and team games in the woodland. This was finally a good opportunity to see who had improved their leadership, communication and teamwork skills. As always, everyone had developed, and that made our decision for prizes even harder!

Finally, all the coaches and myself would like to say a BIG thank you to all the children, parents and guardians for such a stunning week! A fantastic job by all, well done, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

Pictured below are the kids and coaches from our camp – Click here for more pictures from our Adventure Camp.