Team Challenge Day 3 – Expedition Evening

The group got the tents up – the weather was fantastic and the Loch was tranquil. Marcus and Elloy agreed to trek up the hill using their ‘night navigation’ skills to meet Jonny who was bringing down some supplies. Marcus says: ‘ I narrowly avoided a fight with a sheep. got lost on the way down – it all looked the same in the dark but we kept our cool (and Jonny kept quiet for a change). Muddy, wet, dark, and by that time of night it was cold – so it was a real achievement to get back down’. Everyone slept well that night.

Team Challenge – Day 3 – the expedition

On day 3 – the Team were gearing up to a canoe across Loch Tay – only 1 mile but the waves were choppy and the wind was up. To make it more difficult the team had decided to consider various modes of transport from swimming (with a safety boat) to a hand built raft (comprising barrels and planks) . The team began by building the raft and undertaking a test sail. It was sailed by Calum and Marcus who despite being bored to death by Jonny Kinross’ knot tying lessons gave it the rough Loch seas treatment! Marcus says ‘it stayed together despite me thinking it was going to fall apart. We capsized it a few times and it still stayed together! The knots are the key to making it strong, having good tension in the ropes, it was good fun!’

Then the group sailed. The team encouraged Brett to canoe across despite his fear of capsizing. And Chris Thomson, long term volunteer and now staff member of Northern Lights along with Marcus (Participant) attempted to swim the 1 mile across the bumpy Loch. Chris made it, with much encouragement from the group and Marcus put in a very good effort and made just over half way

Brett says: ‘The group kept annoying me – insisting I’d be alright and eventually I gave up to shut them up. I felt a sigh of relief when I got over the other side of the Loch but I was glad I did it. I overcame my fear of deep water.  I trusted the team a lot more than I thought I did’.

The group pitched tents and set a well deserved fire!

New video of the team challenges

Check out our new video, featuring Project Worker Jonny Kinross and participant Eloy Pena, as the group tackles team challenges at the Abernethy Trust on Loch Tay.

STV follows Northern Lights

The groups outdoor adventures at their Perthshire residential has made the front page of STV’s Edinburgh North website. STV plans to follow the young peoples progress with blogs and video clips through the rest of the project. If you miss them on the front page then go straight to their story instead.

 

 

The High Ropes by Marcus Glancy

I found this extremely challenging. It is extremely high. It wobbles. I have been on these before and I thought I’d never go on again because I had a wee fall. Despite this I pushed myself and completed the first two challenges. It felt really good.

Later that evening I spent hours in the loch swimming about with the rest of the team. I really enjoyed this because I dont get a chance to do something like this normally.

The Rubber Dingy Rapids!

As a reward for long day of low and high ropes challenges the team had the reward (not everyone’s idea of a reward!) of holding on for dear life to an inflatable being towed by a boat at exhilerating speeds.  Not everyone took up the opportunity but those that did totally loved it. A well earnt exciting end to a hard day especially given they were working as a team to completed mind taxing tasks sometimes in the pouring rain – all the time climbing on cold wet slippy logs. Even more challenging for some of the team is that had to trust in eachother to hold them up on a rope.

 

Loch Tay Team Challenge – Day 2 – the Ropes…

The team got up bright and early to meet Inigo (helping coach the participants in video making skills) for a brief workshop looking at videoing techniques. Then it was time to get stuck into the tough series of problem solving and team challenges set by Abernethy Trust Instructors David and Paul.

Conor (participant): ‘Everybody was working together to do the set of challenges. There was one though that needed to put a lot more thinking and effort into it. Theres 6 circles – numbered 6 to 1 and they get smaller as you go up and there’s three poles. You need to move all the circles onto another pole in the right order – you may think it sounds easy but its extremely hard and each circle you had to have that number of people lifting the number of circle. Two to lift 2 and so on’

Conor: ‘In the afternoon we were set a challenge to do the high ropes course at 25m high. It was very hard but if like me you do it over and over again you get used to it, and if i set my goal to do something I have to get it. There was another high rope challenge with a big pole leading to a leap to a trapease 1m away it was scary at first but once i done it i couldn’t stop my self doing it more and more,Then we tried some more stuff like once we were on the trapease we dangled upside down only holding on with my feet and let go and i was lowerd to the ground head first with my feet in the air. All this time I was putting trust in my friends who were holding me on a rope in a harness’