At the end of Transition Year, St. Gerard's organise two trips for the students: the Camino and the French Exchange. They are on at the same time so we had to choose which trip we wanted to go on. As I am studying Spanish, I decided that I would love to go on the Camino.
El Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage in Spain. It has many different routes that all end up in the town of Santiago. We received a talk about the Camino in the beginning of March that gave us all of the information we need to know about the trip. We were told that we will be walking a route called the French Way. The trip will be 8 days long and we will be walking around 125km in total. We have to carry all of our luggage all the time as we will be walking from hostel to hostel, so we have to buy special backpacks and pack lightly. We also have to find a pair of comfortable footwear. We were given a brochure of information and a small booklet that we bring and get stamped at each town that we stop in. Now that I have all of the information about the Camino, I am looking forward to the trip and I am excited for the new experience.
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Every year the TY students in St. Gerard’s go up to Carlingford Adventure Centre in Co.Louth for a week. This year, we went from Monday the 19th of February to Thursday the 22nd.
We arrived at the school at 9am on Monday morning where we packed into two coaches. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the adventure centre. When we arrived, we sat in a sports hall where one of the instructors in the centre explained the rules, the daily routine and what our week would entail. We were then assigned our bedrooms. The girls were split in two, with two rooms of 11 girls. We settled in and unpacked our things and then went for lunch. The food was really good and it also had really nice vegetarian options. After lunch, the year was split into two groups, A and B, and we headed off to do our first activity of the week. I was in group A and for our first activity we went to SkyPark. SkyPark is made up of lots of obstacle courses in the air with ziplines and tighropes etc. When we arrived I was terrified as I don’t really like heights, but I decided to go for it and it was so much fun. We were given harnesses and could choose between moderate, difficult and extremely difficult courses. It was a really fun activity and everyone loved it. After we had come back and had dinner, we had our night activity. Group A went into the sports hall and split into teams. We took part in different challenges for the evening and the winning group got a prize. The next morning after breakfast, my group went canoeing. We were not very happy about this as it was freezing. We got into wetsuits and helmets and headed out. The canoes could fit 4 people in them, and three canoes were attached so there was 12 in each group. Although it was absolutely freezing, it was really good fun and we were so glad we did it afterwards. Our afternoon activity on Tuesday was laser tag in the forest. We wore camouflage suits and split into red and blue teams. Laser tag was really enjoyable as everyone got really competitive, even though the blue team lost every time! Our nighttime activity was NightLine, where we went into the forest blindfolded and had to guide each other while holding onto a rope. It was a great team building exercise. On Wednesday morning my group went back to SkyPark. This time we took part in activities such as frisbee golf, archery and aeroball. Again, everyone was really competitive which made it enjoyable. In the afternoon we went back into the forest to Ziptopia. Ziptopia was a series of ziplines high in the trees. I was really scared at first, but once everyone else tried it I realised it wasn’t that bad. It was such a cool experience to zipline through the forest and the views were amazing. For our night activity, we took part in a murder mystery around the town, where we had to work as a team to try and find all the clues and solve the murder. This was a really good activity as it forced everyone to take part and solve the clues together. On our last morning, we went back to SkyPark, where we were split into groups and took part in a number of different team building challenges. For example, for one of the challenges there was a huge rope shaped like a spiderweb, and we had to get each person through the spiderweb without touching the rope and only using each hole once. This was my favourite activity as none of the challenges could have been completed if the whole team didn’t work together, so everyone was involved. Our very last activity was the High Ropes, where there were different activities really high up in the air. I got over my fear of heights and did a leap of faith off of a pole 30m high in the air and grabbed onto a barrier. We then went home on Thursday evening. Carlingford was my favourite part of TY so far. I absolutely loved how full on each day was and there was a new activity to try every single day. I was thrown out of my comfort zone with some of the activities and I enjoyed myself so much. I loved being outdoors all day as it is not something we get to experience very often. Our year also bonded really well as we sat up in the games room each evening, ate our meals together and took part in activities together. Everyone grew closer and I loved that we were rarely on our phones as we all talked to each other. The trip was amazing and I loved every minute of it. The day the Junior Certificate results come out every year, the St Gerard's transition year students are lucky enough to be brought camping to Lough Dan. This year on the Wednesday the 13th of September, after receiving our results in the school, my year headed off on two coaches to go camping. The trip was for two nights. We all came prepared with tents, food supplies and lots of clothing. As soon as we arrived we began to set up our tents, which was a very difficult task as it was extremely windy. We then went on a 5km walk which was very muddy because unfortunately it was raining. The next day we went on a 17km hike around the lake which was great fun as the sun was shining and everybody was together. Afterwards we went swimming in the lake, which was absolutely freezing! We had to cook our own food for the trip, which mainly consisted of undercooked sausages and instant noodles - our cooking skills were very limited! Although we had packed lots of warm clothes, we apparently had the worst weather the school ever experienced while camping so we were all freezing and soaked through from the rain, especially at night. In the evenings we all sat around a bonfire talking and eating marshmallows. The way we did everything together brought everyone really close to each other. We then came home on the Friday morning. The camping was a great new experience and I made lots of good memories. Although the weather was disappointing and it was hard to sleep at night, I still really enjoyed my first time camping. It was nice to be around my whole year and get to talk to everybody, including the teachers. It was also a really good distraction for everybody after getting our results. The trip was so much fun and I'm so thankful that I was given the opportunity.
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