Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Silver Award – WASCZ Trip to Tianmuhu

Mon 21st – Wed 23rd Nov 2022

Young people growing up in this modern, complicated world have many difficulties to face, and opportunities for personal achievement are often limited. The Award is intended to help both the young as well as those who are concerned for their welfare. It provides an introduction to worthwhile leisure activities and voluntary service, as a challenge to the satisfaction of achievement and encourages the development of young citizens.

DAY 1?

The students boarded their buses at WAS Changzhou with a spring in their step around 9.15am on Monday morning to?take them to this year’s DofE experience in Tianmuhu.

They arrived at the camp site around 11am and dropped off their packs, taking just their day bags for the start of Day 1. The weather was warm as the groups were setting off and it was only a matter of minutes before everyone had removed their jackets and increased their heart rate due to the steep incline for the first part of the trek, which took them through the first of many bamboo forests.

Each group had lunch when they reached the summit whilst enjoying spectacular views over Tianmuhu.

After a short stretch along the top of the mountain through quite dense bush the students made their descent through some beautiful bamboo and natural forest sections. This was quite steep too and there was the odd slide for the students to enjoy too.

It was around 5.30pm when the students returned to camp and were greeted by Indier staff and given their tents for the evening. Once their tents were erected the students were given cooking equipment so they could prepare their own dinner. This consisted of spaghetti with vegetables and a tomato sauce which tasted great after their first day hiking.

After cleaning up and putting away the cooking equipment, the students?were treated to a couple of hours of restbefore lights out at 10pm.

DAY 2

After a stormy night with lots of rain, the students awoke to a very wet and soggy camp site.?Wake up was 7am and after taking down the tents the students proceeded to have breakfast and make their packed lunches before walking a kilometer to the nearest covid testing station. This was necessary to allow the students back on campus on Wednesday evening.

The weather was overcast and most of the day yielded a light misty rain as the groups set off on Day 2 of their DofE experience with another steep incline which was made more difficult due to the overnight rain.?The top part of the mountain was more undulating going through some spectacular bamboo sections.

Problems arose on the descent as the surface was very slippery and the students had to band together and work as a team to get everyone down safely.

Here’s one of the groups at the finish of Day 2, a little bit muddy and exhausted but all glad to be down.?The bus ride back to the campsite was very quiet as most of the students were enjoying some well-deserved ‘shut-eye’!

In the evening the students again cooked for themselves, this time enjoying a very enjoyable curry and rice dish. After the clean-up and a couple of hours rest, the campsite was deathly quite well before the 10pm lights out…proof of an action-packed day!

DAY 3

The final day started with a 7am wake up and the students having breakfast and collecting their packed lunch before dismantling their tents and packing up all their gear.

Once all the equipment and bags were packed, the groups spent 15-20 mins with the Guides explaining how to use time to approximately know when to change directions between legs (sections of a trek). By this stage everyone had taken a turn in navigating the route with the Indier guide monitoring plus the added skill of using time to help them as they were following a bearing.?The students set off for their final day hike around 9.40am with full backpacks and a detailed route map.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the responsibility of leading the group and the Guides was on hand if they made any errors. Everyone enjoyed this route even though they had full backpacks as the terrain was mainly flat with only a handful of elevations as opposed to the previous two days.

After walking through fields, on roads and winding through a bamboo forest, the students ended up at the finish point with a huge sense of achievement and relief.?The students were told on the bus to congratulate themselves on completing this three-day hiking experience as it was one of the toughest to date that any student from WAS has completed.

From a teacher’s perspective, this was indeed a tough few days hiking and?the students should be very proud of their efforts, as they showed great determination and resilience in participating in this DofE experience.

WASCZ PE Teacher & Dean of Elgar College

Mr Neil Harmon