Day 4 by Abigail Jonker and Dionne Sandison

Hello everyone,today we had lots of fun.To start off the day one group went raft building. We tied lots of planks of wood together and put barrels underneath to keep us afloat. We were split up into teams and had a race on the loch.

Next we did some crate climbing where we stacked up crates as high as we could climb them.The highest score in group A was fourteen!

Before bedtime we had a campfire and reflected on all the things we had done in the past week (most people enjoyed getting covered in mud!We enjoyed last nights night walk where we were split into groups and had to walk on a trail without an adult! We heard some scary noises on our way but turns out it was just Mr.Craig!).We also toasted marshmallows and played around in the front yard.

We are missing you all and are looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow.xxx

Day 3 by Ariana Black, Leo and Dionne Sandison and Amy Armour

First off, we looked to see if there was anything in our traps. We found … A wood mouse and a field mouse. Unfortunately the wood mouse got away because there was a hole in the bag.

After that one group was sent to face their fears at one of the high rope obstacles called “the high V” where we climbed up a tree using ladders and there were two ropes, shaped like a v and we had to grasp our partners shoulders and walk along the ropes, with nothing to hold onto but our partners! After making it a few steps, most of us jumped off into the middle, hugging each other tightly, others just fell and bashed into each other, but we were well protected and nobody was hurt.

We went river dipping, we got really wet but found loads of animals. We found a stone fly coming out of its skin. Some of the group saw larvae and nymphs through really good microscopes.

Leo and Dionne say happy 8th birthday Chrissie, hope you had fun.

Days 1 and 2 by Lucy Connor and Andrew Arthur

After a good first night’s sleep we needed our big breakfast to give us energy for the walk up Kindrogan Hill. On the way we discovered a tree with needles that smelled of (lime flavour) starburst, an abandoned cemetery, frogs, toads and newts. We ate wood sorrel leaves which tasted like apple. We also found out about ‘drop spiders’, the size of a dinner plate, they also burn your skin if they bite. They only come down from trees if you are noisy.

We learned a story about Kindrogan house and the graveyard of Kindrogan’s early citizens.

Most of us got stuck in the boggy path at the top, some dived in head first!

We made shelters in a pine wood using all the natural resources we could find. Our shelters were tested by the teachers pouring water over them when all the members of the team were inside. Mostly everyone got drenched.

We have just set traps for mice and voles, the traps are full of food and bedding and are at an angle to let rain and urine out! We hope some of them will be full tomorrow.

—————

On Monday we arrived in good time, had our sandwiches then found our rooms and made our beds. We had to be double quick to get out to the kit store for waterproofs and wellies.

We did team games and low ropes in the afternoon. After a big dinner we learnt more about John Muir and created our own mini national parks.