Climbing and Abseiling by Anna

In the morning, group 8 (which I am in) all went climbing and abseiling, and this is how it went:

After meeting in the common room, to find out where each group would meet, we all met in the courtyard and got our harnesses and helmets on. After we all were ready and we had learnt to use our harnesses, we got into a mini-bus and drove to a massive cliff, which we would be abseiling down.

When we got off the bus, we were able to see that off to the side was a path, slanting upwards slightly, leading to another cliff, but this time the cliff had way more hand holds and footholds, and looked so much more easier to climb.

After Thea explained everything, 8 of our group (including me) went up the path to start the climb. As we reached the bottom, our instructor started climbing up the cliff. She was saying that she was only giving us guidelines and that we were to mostly find our own way up.

 Climbing up the cliff had its easy bits and its hard bits. I had to think about were to put my hands and feet, and sometimes my knees, it was a bit like a puzzle.

Despite my hands feeling like they were going to fall off, I still went and the big abseil.

Waiting to have my shot at the big abseil, Charlotte, Roddy, Sasha and I were sticking leaves and twigs in the holes on each other’s helmets. It was so fun.

Once Sasha started to go down the cliff, charlotte and I were sticking lots of things in Roddy’s helmet, which he didn’t mind. ‘Roddy La Twig’ was what we called him. Just before Roddy went over the edge, Charlotte and I called out to the people on the ground, “presenting, Roddy La Twig!” everyone locked up and stared at him the whole way down.

Just then, I realized it was my turn to go down. Cautiously, I stumbled my way along the edge to where I would clip my harness to the ropes. I ventured over rim and started to slowly edge my way down the cliff. Having gone 20 feet out of the 50, I stopped walking and started bouncing. Boing, boing!!

Loving every moment of the abseil, I was disappointed when my feet hit solid ground, but I was also proud that I had actually abseiled down a 50-foot cliff. Climbing and Abseiling was definitely my favourite activity and a memory I will never forget.