This term the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award members went to Pennsylvania to enjoy a three day horse riding and camping experience. The group of 18 students were joined by Mr and Mrs Campbell, Mrs Darby and Mr Dawson. The trip consisted of three days of horse riding where we tackled some very adventurous terrain,  forded large rivers, meandered through forest trails and wide-open fields.

For all, it was a challenging experience, but spirits were consistently high and everyone learnt many more skills in horse riding. The first two days we rode for five hours and on the last day we had a shorter  3 1/2 hour ride.

The weather was perfect and after the second scorching hot day of riding we all jumped on the school bus and went down to a very picturesque country store and enjoyed a well earned bottle of sarsaparilla on the porch, it was like stepping back through time!

Our accommodations was fairly basic as we all slept in tents and cooked outside.  We were able to bring along a couple of barbecues so the food was pretty spectacular. Pennsylvania is a really beautiful state and the Cook Forest region is wonderful this time of year.

The weekend before the long horse riding trip the team participated in a practice trip, so on Saturday 11th we all took a bus out to a local horse riding stable where we were given some basic instruction into controlling a horse. From there we went out to the BOERC where we camped the night and cooked two of the meals we would be having on the longer trip.

I am sure that this trip will be remembered for a very long time as being one of those lifetime experiences that you would hope to repeat again. The group of campers were really outstanding and I would like to thank each of them for their effort and enthusiasm to make the trip a resounding success.

To view more pictures from the trip, please click here.

As told by Mr. Giles Campbell, Duke of Edinburgh Coordinator