Page 78 - royal-times-17-18

TY ADVENTURE TRIP 2017

On the 30th August 2017 the lives of 37 Transition Year pupils from the
Royal School Cavan, were changed indefinitely. It was the day that we
all set off on our camping trip to Lough Key.

What we expected would be a nice little camp in a campsite well
equipped with toilet and shower facilities, cooking and washing
facilities, with a little bit of paddling during the day to keep us
entertained, turned out to be a trip to an uninhabited island that had
never even heard of the word civilisation, let alone a toilet or a shower.

It all began with a lovely bus journey over to North West Adventures,
where we met Deirdre, our guide. It was only upon our arrival when
we discovered that there wouldn’t be any toilets on the island. I have
to admit that a few tears were shed upon hearing this shocking news,
many of the students had never camped in their life, so this was a huge
shock to the system. We were given a barrel, where we were told we
had to put our stuff, but that only the bare essentials were necessary,
no spare clothes or shoes, and no phones! But as I’m sure you can guess,
we had the sense to squeeze as much as we could into those barrels,
including a few extra layers.

We were told to leave our extra stuff at the centre, and then got back
on the bus and made our way to Zip-It in Lough Key Forest Park. This
would help ease the blow slightly! At Zip-It we were shown how to use
the ropes and how to go along in the trees, some of which were up to
15 metres above the ground! This was quit challenging for some of the
students who had a fear of heights. The experience however brought
us closer together as a year, as we were able to help each other with
words of encouragement. When this was over we went back to Lough
Key for some food. After this we began our first treacherous voyage
across the lake to our first ‘home’. We were all shown how to paddle in
either raft or a Canadian Canoe and were sent off in the direction of the
island.

When we finally arrived at the island after about 20 minutes paddling
we realised that what Deirdre had said was true, there really was nothing
there! The reality hit like a ton of bricks. We were first told to collect fire
wood for the fire that our food would be cooked on, and carried our
barrels up to the tents which were thankfully, already assembled.

The boys collected half of the trees in the forest for the fire! We then

78 The Royal Times 2017-2018