High Adventure!

With the start of the new school year comes our Y6 residential to High Adventure – and what a fantastic week we’ve had!

See below for our daily updates…

Day 1

What a fantastic start to our time at High Adventure! After the first challenge of making beds and our lunch in common room, the groups were out on site straight away to tackle the High Ropes. We didn’t let the drizzle dampen our spirits as we were all excited to tackle the infamous Leap of Faith and other high up activities like gladiator and ziplining!

After a good few hours out on the High Ropes, we headed into the centre for dinner – roast turkey dinner with High Adventure cupcake for pudding. Yummm! 

After some down time to recharge our batteries a little and spend some of our pennies at the tuck shop, we split into two groups: one headed out for archery  and the other played Blindline , where we were all blindfolded and walked along a course in the ground which was highly entertaining! Both groups loved their activity!

Day 2

Our first full day of activities and adventures! The day started off with the slightly challenging task of making our own lunches before a good breakfast: a range of cereals, toast and jam, and even bacon and beans.

Once we were finished, our rooms were inspected by Becky – and let’s just say we have some room for improvement! We then got into our four different groups to find out what our different activities were for the day. Mr Symonds’ group headed out for mountain activities, whilst Mrs Hearson’s and Mr Gardiner’s group prepared for a day of orienteering and canoeing and Miss Platts’ group headed out to the caves. 

Each group has had an enjoyable day and trip so far with more new, exciting and challenging experiences to go this week….and some have written a little report to share!

Group C:

Today we got up bright and early so we could walk up the high mountain with all our heavy bags on our tired backs. When we got a quarter of the way up the mountain, we played a game named ‘predator’ which is where one person volunteers to become the seeker and the others hide so you don’t get caught. The hiders stay hidden whilst the seeker looks round to find them. The aim of the game is to tig the seeker before they spot you. Then we pushed on up the mountain and took a few breaks to get our strength up (and we moaned a little showing that we were exhausted) but although it was difficult we managed to get to the top. When we got to the top we had a great view and it was definitely worth climbing! We really enjoyed the abseiling and climbing (even though there were a few nervous faces) but another group will be doing that this week and will be talking about it another day…

By Phoebe and birthday boy Henry

Group B & D:

After a short 30 minute drive, we finally arrived at a glorious, shimmering lake. A short while later, we left our belongings in the changing rooms, and got into our High Adventure waterproofs, and soon after we headed down where we got into our buoyancy aid, and had our neon yellow helmets put on for extra protection. Whilst we were doing that, people were taking our canoes down to the lake, ready for us to step into with our paddles in another hand. Once we entered the canoes, we began using our paddles to catch us up to the other groups. Shortly after, we were picking up pace and had caught up with the other groups. After being in the water for about 20 minutes, Simon (a High Adventure staff member) announced that we had many fun games planned ahead. Before we played all our interesting games, we had to ask the fish permission to play the games – which mainly included sticking our heads in the fresh water. After asking the fish, we began our games with a quick warmup, fruit salad, head, shoulders, knees and jump, and a quick race. Our main game was called pirates, which included getting tennis balls from the water and keeping them in our canoes. There was a lot of competition whilst playing this game, but it ended up being good fun, and with a splash!

By Mia M and Alice

This evening, we’ve had a very filling and tasty dinner of lasagne and a special cupcake to fill us up before getting cracking with our evening activities: blindline and eggbert! 

Day 3

It’s been another jam-packed day at High Adventure! Everyone has had lots of fun on their different adventures today. There has been climbing, abseiling, weaselling and bouldering on the mountain side, as well as canoeing and caving. Some Y6s have described their activities today…

Group A: Today me and group A walked up the mountain near the centre. We all went abseiling down a cliff then walked back to the top to the Pinnacle. Finally we went weaselling and got all muddy! – William

My favourite part of the day was when we went abseiling down a cliff! It was quite hard but half of us got down so it was alright but we all enjoyed it! – Harry

Group B: Today we went caving in Thistle and Runscar cave. There was lots of water inside the cave and parts of the gave were really small so we had to crawl through. Throughout the cave we got a couple of challenges to complete and they were really fun. It was very dark in the caves but we did get head torches on our helmets so we could see. There was a point where our instructor told us to turn our lights of so it was complete darkness – Poppy and Tilly 

Group C: Today was really fun as we were on the canoes and there was so many  exciting things to do. Everybody is having a great time and each and every one of us has many memories to share xxx—Cara

Group D: Today was amazing! The main activity we did was caving which was one of my favourite parts of high Adventure so far. I loved it because it was so different to things we normally do at school! – Connie 

We also had a busy evening of activities with one half completing their Eggbert challenge to create a contraption to hold an egg securely and protect it from a fall…some designs were more successful than others!!

Day 4

We can’t quite believe it’s already Thursday, and our final full day at High Adventure! This week has been full of fantastic and new experiences for all our Park Grovers and we are so proud of every single one of them for pushing themselves each day this week. 

It was our final carousel of full day activities today (we have some centre-based fun planned tomorrow morning!) and here’s a quick round up from some more Y6s…

Group A: The best thing about today has been canoeing because I loved jumping in the reservoir despite me being frightened at first! – Alfie HC 

Group B: My favourite part of today was rock climbing because I got really high and it was challenging – Max 

Group C: Today I enjoyed the labyrinth because we got to play a game where you hide things like a caving suit and the other group had to find it. The labyrinth was really fun because it felt like you were in a wooden box and got lost! – Rihanna 

Group D: I really enjoyed going up Lund’s Tower because we were told a scary story about the family who built it! – Harrison

After a scrumptious dinner of jacket potatoes and jam sponge and custard, we were ready to enjoy our final evening activities of archery and bouldering, making sure we’re all tired and ready for our last nights sleep here.