Over the weekend, we did our first ten tors training weekend on Dartmoor of the year. Despite there being a lot of interest for 45 (the mileage I am 'applying' for this year) there was a maths GCSE on the Monday after which didn't involve me, but did involve most people meaning that there were only 4 of us in our team.
We met after school on Friday, and after loading our kit into the mini buses (and fixing a broken window), we drove down. On the way we stopped at the 'Ten Tors service station' (Exeter), and had burger king for dinner before driving down to south zeal. We were staying in the community hall there.
After we had unpacked every out of the minibuses, we did a kit check, before planning our routes for the weekend. We then had drinks and biscuits before going to bed at around 11pm.
The next morning we had a slightly more relaxed start to last year, when we had to be up at 4am and ready to go at 4.20am! This year we woke up at around 6am, and leisurely packed up our kit and had breakfast. Mr Stewart than spent about half an hour explaining to one of the 35 teams, that they had taken too many tents, and repacking their bags for them before we loading into the minibuses, and drove to Okehampton.
Once we got to Okehampton, Mr Stewart gave the 35's a tour of the base while we walked up to the start point with Mr Brewer.
We then headed off, starting with Roos tor, which is right by the army base. We then walked along one of the military tracks to East Mill tor, where one of the teams from castle tor (Beechen Cliff sometimes train with them as Mr Brewer's sister teaches there) went in completely the wrong direction.
From East Mill tor, we walked in a direct straight line over the moorland to Yes tor. When we went around to the other side of Yes tor, we were almost blown off our feet by the incredible change in the strength of the wind. We started to walk away from Yes tor, but soon it started to rain, so we stopped to get on water proof trousers etc... We then set off again and it started to hail before we went down a very steep drop, over a river, and up the steep other side to Sourton tor. We then took a path which led us past Gren tor, and up the Kitty tor. Once there, we met a lot of the teachers, and had some food for lunch. We then went a few hundred meters before having to stop while Sam sorted out his shoe. In this time, a team from Millfield came over to us, and when I looked at their map for them, I realised that they were on completely the wrong side of the moor! After I had pointed them in the right direction, we went down to a river crossing where we met Mr Brewer's brother. We then headed back up to Chat tor, before going across to Great Links tor which was our final tor of the day. We then headed down of the tor where we met Mr Brewer's sister, who showed us to a good place to camp. We then pitched up, ate dinner and went to bed at about 7pm.
The next morning, we had a lie in, and didn't have to wake up until 6am. As we were expecting, it was raining, but it wasn't very heavy. I quickly packed up my sleeping bag etc... and started to heat up our breakfast on our trangia. We then packed up our tents and went to the campsite where the teachers were for 8am. We were meant to be being driven back to Okehampton, so we could walk on the east moor, but due to lack of teachers in the misty and wet weather, our route was changed, so we started from where we finished the final day.
We started by walking up the steep slope that we had gone down the previous day. We went slightly too far to the left, and ended up at little links tor instead of great links tor. We then headed directly up to great links tor, from which we took a bearing down until we hit the path that we had taken the previous day. We took this path along to Sourton tor. Afterward we went back along the river crossing that we had done the day before. We then went directly over the moor (meeting the teachers halfway) to Okehampton camp, which was our finish point.
After that we drove back to school via the 'ten tors services'.
No comments:
Post a Comment