Gaisce Hike

Last Friday all of the TYs taking part in gaisce did the 25km hike as part of the bronze award.  We left the school at 1:20 to go to Kippure Estate in Co. Wicklow. We arrived at around ten past two and left our bags in our houses. We put on our hiking gear and were introduced to our guides. We then set out on our 15km hike. The mountains were quite steep so it was a difficult hike. It took us 5 hours to complete this distance with few breaks along the way. On the way down the mountain it was extremely steep and many people fell and tumbled. We had to walk through fields, forests and bogs! There had been a forest fire a few days before and the grass and trees were burnt. When we arrived back at the estate, it was around 9 o'clock and everyone was extremely tired and hungry. We cooked our own dinner. Nobody got much sleep that night so we were all exhausted the next morning. We had to get up and half 7 to begin our activities at 9. The first activity we did was the 'leap of faith', we then did abseiling and rock climbing, it was really fun and everyone really enjoyed it. After the activities, we had our lunch and then got on a bus to go to the beginning of our hike. On the way up the mountain in the bus we nearly hit a lamb that ran across the road, everyone jumped in their seats including the teachers! When we got to the starting point, it was snowing, everyone was dreading the hike and was ready to give up before we had even started! The 10 km that we did on Saturday felt like the longest walk ever because it was freezing and everyone was tired. At around half 5 we finally arrived back at the houses, everyone changed into warm clothes and we got the bus back to Celbridge. It was an amazing experience to hike 25km and i think we definitely bonded more as a group during this trip because we had to get through it together.