Duke Of Edinburgh Presentation Bradley Fisher, Adam Thompson, Connor Ogdon, Ross Baillie-Eames, Lewis Higson, Scott Poole, Toby Mills, Chloe Hedgecock

Introduction We undertook our Duke Of Edinburgh expedition on the 12th June till the 14th June 2015. Prior to our expedition we undertook several training sessions which included map reading, first aid skills, teamwork and our practice expedition.

Practice Expedition For our practice expedition we went to Bowley Scout Camp in Whalley, Blackburn. We attended our practice expedition for 3 days and 2 nights in tents which was the same length of time as for our actual expedition but we were allowed contact with our scout leaders if we needed. We were out for a total of 3 hours on the Friday, 5 hours on the Saturday and 6 hours on the Sunday.

Practice Expedition Images

Expedition Preparations We had to ensure we had all of our kit and equipment for the expedition. We did this by practice kit checks and checking our tents prior to the expedition. We also did the practice expedition with full kit and assessed if we had the right equipment and how well we all functioned as a group.

More Practice Photos

Expedition Day 1 Our final expedition was in Rivington near Chorley. We started our expedition on Friday 12th June. We set off from Chorley train station to our camp site at Bibby’s Farm. We encountered very few issues along the way and we functioned well as a unit with all of us contributing to map reading and leading the group.

Expedition Day 1 Continued We got to our camp site at Bibby’s Farm at around 8:30 in the evening. We arrived at our pitch and set up our tents in an organised fashion. We then proceeded to make our tea for the night using gas stoves to cook them on. We all allocate each other tasks so that everyone was doing something and it got us set up quickly so that we had more time to eat, sleep and rest.

Expedition Day 2 On the Saturday we woke up at 6:15am and began cooking our breakfast and packed away our tents. Before we left we checked the campsite for litter in order to leave the campsite in a respectable condition. We started walking at about 9:00am due to our assessor Brian being a touch late because of two punctured tyres.

Expedition Day 2 Continued Our route took us around Anglezarke Reservoir and through fields near to Anglezarke and then back to our campsite at Bibby’s Farm. We were out for a total of around 6 hours. We encountered minor issues regarding the heat and the occasional navigational error but we corrected ourselves to get back on route. For the rest of the day it was plain sailing and we found our way back to the camp site with no issues but just tired legs and minds. We set up our tents as soon as we got back to the camp site, had our evening meal and all went to sleep for the evening.

Expedition Day 3 Yet again we woke up early at around 6:30am, we had our breakfast and we were ready to leave the campsite by 8:00. We did this in order to finish our expedition earlier to avoid the afternoon heat. We walked up to White Coppice Cricket Club where we met our DofE assessor Brian and this was where we took our longest break. At this point it was raining profusely. We then proceeded to walk up Great Hill. The ascent to Great Hill was fairly steep but we persevered and took a break near the top of the hill to have our lunch.

Expedition Day 3 Continued After we had our lunch we continued on our route towards the summit of Great Hill. We took no breaks on this stretch of the walk as we were very keen to finish our expedition on time. We then began our descent of Great Hill where we had to be careful of the terrain as it was very slippery. After this, we walked along Belmont Road to our rendezvous with Brian, which completed our expedition.

The Aim of Our Expedition The aim of our expedition was to explore the effect of tourism on the natural areas surrounding Anglezarke Reservoir and Rivington as a whole. Overall, we found that many areas were subject to litter and path erosion. To fix this issue, steps should be taken to introduce signs encouraging visitors to keep to the path, also to pick up any litter spotted and put in the nearest bin, thusly preserve the natural beauty of the area.

Conclusion To conclude we all managed to survive our DofE expedition and pass without any major issues and problems. We all stuck together as a team and looked out for one another and most importantly we had some fun! A big thanks to the leaders for keeping us motivated on the expedition, giving up their own time to support us and to encourage us to push on with our DofE and a huge thanks also to Brian for assessing us.

Thank You For Listening!