In AbuDhabi...not long now!

Caernarfon Castle....

That's it from NWales, off the airport. see you soon :)

Mountain Bike track..watch out for those trees...

Hardest job of the day! Our insructors, Trigger and Bryan testing the childrens zip line while we were in the slate museum...

Our instructors are really cool and taught us some great skills that we are sure to use again.

We didn't get to go on the zip line today though :(

 

Visit to Vivian Quarry Llanberis slate mine musuem

We went to the SLATE museum after our kyaking experience to see where the slate came from. Slate is actually compressed mud and sediment formed over millions of years in the earth. Welsh slate is some of the oldest on the planet, and many people buy it from all over the world. In the picture below you can see a big mouintin at the back called Vivian quarry, it is carved out where the slate mining took place. We actually saw a man cutting the slate, he made a heart. All those buildings are made out of Slate too.There were lots of train tracks all going to different rooms. My favirout part was when we went to the big water wheel that powered everything. There there was some pretty cool cottages that the miners used to live in, each cottage showed how the miners lived in different ages. We saw cottages from 1861, 1902 and 1961. The miners where treated very badly in the early years and was only paid 1 pound as salary and had to share a 2 roomed cottage with other minng families.  They had hard times!

Ahira Varkey

 

Kayak adventure at Llyn Padarn in Llanberis

 

Today we went kyaking in the lake next to mount Snowdan called Llyn (lake) Padarn. We all got our wetsuits cags and boyancy aids on, then did a few drills with Trigger on how to use our paddles. You had to rotate the shaft with your hand and you put the blade in  the water. Then we got in the water and just floated around to get use to the kyak. After that we started to move around a little bit more and we went through the water and a little bit further to the other side.  We played the simpson game then when Edguard and Mr. Rhys-Jones capsized and had to get out of the cold water. Mr Rhys-Jones was trying to do a cool move and tipped right in! Then everybody got out except David,Martin and Gio. We went on a little further to look at the mountain then got out and all had lunch. 

Martin Ashcroft

 

Coasteering ... rock hard

Porth Dafarch near Treaddur Bay, south of Holyhead, 

South Stack lighthouse, Holyhead Island

Getting ready for coasteering, helmets, wetsuits, bouyancy aids and some courage...

Today we went coasteering. It was far away from the Outdoor Centre so we had to pack some clothes to get changed into after we got wet. Once we put on our wet suits and bouyancy aids we started to climb. Today we also had a new instructor called Bryan. We had to climb the rocks side ways for some of the way and that was called a traverse. At one point we met a dead end so we had to jump in from a ledge and swim to the other side, at least we didn't have to swim very far. But the only bad thing was that we had to get out on the other end and the rocks were so steep and hard to get onto. Next  we had to go through an emergency drill where we had to put our arms across our shoulders and fall back. later on we had to get to the other side again but we had to jump off a large cliff which was a challenge for some people. The instructors told us to do a pencil dive so that we wouldn't hit our head at the bottom, obviously! After the big jump we came to some rock pools which were pretty warm, probably more warm than cold, as they were shallow and heated by the sun. Then we finally came to the end of the headland and jumped in to swim to the beach. In year six we have been learning about stacks and coasts and we we  had a chance to look at some today.

David Ashcroft

'

SPLASH

The day started off cloudy but then the sun came out for the rest of the day. it really was a great day and challenged all of us. Probably the hardest thing we have done but definitely one of the most rewarding

 Coasteering team rewarded with a fine lunch in the sun. Food ALWAYS tastes better after some great exercise outdoors!

 In the RSPB sanctuary at South Stack. There  was an infra red camera trained on some Puffin eggs hatching on the cliff face.

 End of the day before heading back to HQ - SUP? happy, shattered and coasteered!

See you tomorrow.

Evening debrief

In the evenings we have some time to write some notes about the day and update our blog.

Mums and dads, we had another great day and the sea air has left us all ready for a good nights sleep. 

Oh yes, our SUP instructor showed us how to make the epic SUP sign.

 Good night night all.

What SUP ?

It was early in the morning in sunny North Wales, the Menai Straits bearing an uncanny resemblance to a southern Mediterranean idyll, as we took our first tentative steps into the sea in the Northern hemisphere.......

 We started off with a paddle boarding adventure by lying flat on our boards and paddling with our hands. The next step was to paddle on our knees. Many of us got along, some were stuck in the sea weed.   

 The last step was to stand . We all went very well, but it was quite tricky getting to the standing position, there were a couple of splashes.
Edgarde

Easy when you know how

 Interacting with the wildlife. This crab had a sack of eggs underneath it's body. You have to hold the crab carefully so that you don't hurt it and so that it doesn't grab your fingers with its pincers.

Mr RJ, happy before he had a taste of the Menai Straits

We ended the activity by doing some acrobatics on the boards to see who fell in first. We saw Mr. R-J in the water after he was bounced off his board.