Day two started bright and early. None of the Young Carers were looking forward to what was coming after breakfast. Regardless of that, time wasn’t going to stand still or skip forward a few hours.
After breakfast the Young Carers retreated to the cabin but only for a moment whilst they gathered a dry bag of dry clothing, toiletries, and a towel. The inevitable was about to happen. The instructor for the activity was Emma. She led the Young Carers to the ‘sports barn’ to get kitted with
“waterproofs” and life jackets. She initially taught the Young Carers the fundamentals of building a raft; the weight distribution and ratio, how many barrels will be needed to support each Young Carer. They gathered the ropes and we all headed down to ‘Lake Clive’. The Young Carers were shown the proper technique of knotting the ropes and tying the barrels together. They were then left to make the other barrels up and then insert the logs to link them all together.
It was the moment of truth, would it float?
To the relief of the Young Carers; yes, yes it did. And perfectly may I add. I don’t know why they were so worried to start off with. Unfortunately, Diane and If were unable to take part in this activity which was a huge shame. Some would say we dodged a bullet but we decided unanimously that it was the right thing to do.
The vessel, shockingly named ‘Titanic’ by a Young Carer who delegated himself as captain set sail with everyone on board. They disappeared for a while and glided around the lake but no splashes were heard. All was good. They stated to head back to shore and then ‘Splash’ one by one they all jumped in. You wouldn’t have guessed that all but a few hours ago these Young Carers had dreaded this activity for the fear of falling in to the water, now they were carrying half of the lake out in their shoes. Adrenalin pumping, they all climbed back on to land dismantled the raft and hastily walked back to drop off their jackets and coats, grab their dry bags and head off for a much deserved shower then back to the cabin for a little rest before lunch.
Lunch came and went, and we headed back to the netball court to meet our next instructor and head to the range for archery. The instructor taught the Young Carers how to fire a long bow safely on a range. The Young Carers were then split up into two teams and put head to head in a test of skill and accuracy. If you are reading this and thinking they went head to head trying to fire at each other, this was not the case. There were targets, but they were stationary and made of newspaper bundles. Activity ended with a scavenger hunt for a stray arrow that had flown over the target in to a very grassy and wild field. Just think of a needle in a haystack situation.
After they had found the missing arrow, they headed back over towards the netball court where one of the four zip-wires on site was located. It was a timely process with being harnessed up and running up and down a rather large hill but all of the Young Carers had multiple rides on the wire. They set themselves little challenges which all of them completed and enjoyed. It was on to dinner and then our final activity of the day.
Much to the Young Carers relief after an extremely active day, the final activity was simply a chill out night and a film. The choice of film was ‘Scott pilgrim vs. the world” it was nice for them to relax as the last 2 days for them have been exhausting and it was all going to start again for their third and final day.