Monday 31 August 2015

Two. Magnificent Seven.

The Team // Our name, the Magnificent Seven : Feyi, Ye, Steph, Nick, John, Kevin & I. In the mornings we would do a cringe-y warm up jog, stretch & hands in as we chanted, Maaaaaaaag 7! Not a usual student sight. Through the days of walking, everyone was encouraging and we somehow managed (probably thanks to Steph) to stay on route without getting lost! 

The other 6 of us also fell quite naturally into roles; Kevin - the one who kept everyone positive with his incredibly seagull-like laughter, Nick -who never missed an opportunity for a new profile picture, Ye - our paparazzi professional & teacher of all things Malaysian, John - an intellect with hilarious comments & Feyi - my campmate and our mother away from home, always helpful and putting others first. As for myself, you'd have to ask the team but haribo eater would probably pop up.......





The injuries // The main challenge for our team was the day we climbed Snowdon. Not due to navigation or difficulty but to injuries. Steph had managed to persevere with the first couple of days walk despite constant cramps but this was one walk too many and half way up Snowdon the cramps became too much. Nick & Kevin were swiftly in to help, carrying the rucksack and suggesting stretches but the pain was too much and a leader had to meet us to help her back down to the minivan. Having lost our best navigator and good friend, morale was a little lower and just before we reached the top we lost another member. Feyi had powered through the days but the final steep climb to the peak (which we had to literally run up to keep in time) was an extra she preferred to quite wisely bypass. 2 team members down, we ran to the peak & did a rushed photoshoot before picking up our pace to catch up Feyi and the other team by the lake. Not an easy day.

The last day // It was wonderful. As this was a practice expedition, Rick & Keith (our leaders) decided to treat us to a walk without our backpacks and only half the planned route for the day. By lunchtime we were 14kg lighter with a reunited team, sky high morale & the end in sight. We even managed to finish our walk by lunchtime, and substituted our pittas and honey for a well deserved full english (vegetarian for me) breakfast. The following 9 hours consisted of playing mafia & a long mini bus ride back to London with plenty of singing, hysterical laughter & haribos. Ready for hiking round II!

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My friend recommended this from Banksy's Dismaland, I like it a lot - The Employment


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