Adventurer

 I wasn’t planning on doing this badge any time soon. However, when I was given the chance to go along to the Calvert Trust on Exmoor, at a reduced rate, I jumped at it! I’m a foster carer, and I did have to persuade our charge that it would be fun, that he wouldn’t have to do heights, that he wouldn’t be made to do anything he didn’t want to do. I did try to turn it around a bit as well, and tried to encourage him to have a go at things even if he was worried by them.

The Calvert Trust, Exmoor is situated at Wistlandpound reservoir, near Kentisbury in North Devon. It caters for people and families with physical, learning, behavioural and sensory disabilities, making all the activities accessible to all.

It is in a quiet location, and when having a look around we saw rabbits happily sunning themselves! The rooms have cupboards, wardrobes and a wet room. There is a bar, and food is provided with good sized portions, and two choices for lunch and evening meal. 

Once at the centre, we were told which group we would be in. The leaders talked to us about what activities we like and don’t like / are a bit worried about, and then they made a plan. The group we were in dictated what activities we were doing.

We started off with abseiling, and I was quite happy doing this. It wasn’t my first time (that was at Blacklands Farm Guide Camp in about 1987, when we had to do the rock climbing before we could do the abseiling), nor was it the scariest (that was the free fall abseiling from the rafters of the Westland hangar in East Cowes, which I did with Venture Scouts - we had to walk out on the girders to the middle and just lower ourselves to the floor), but it had been about 30 years since I last did any abseiling. I was very pleased to discover that it came back quite quickly, and I trusted the rope and leant back - and just walked my way down!

Next up was the zipline, and I was quite happy to do this one too. I have memories of my mum at a place called Pet’s Corner, and she was on a zipwire just like that - she would have been in her 30s at the time. My young person took the photos - he didn’t realise that he could get closer to get a better picture - but I promise that it is me on the zipline!

The afternoon saw us doing Bushcraft - which included making a shelter (one for another badge!). The following day we did archery, crate stacking, giant swing and some indoor rock climbing. Some of these were extra activities as we had the time for them. 

The rock climbing was great, as there were steps marked in, - climbing up the steps was fairly easy but finding handholds was a little more tricky - and the steps / ledges I was climbing up were a little narrow. Still, I hoisted myself up, and got to the top, and rang the bell. Once up, I had to come back down again, which was a little like the abseiling I had done the day before, although this time the instructor at the bottom was giving more slack on the rope, rather than me controlling it (like you do in abseiling).

    Archery was good fun - the only problem I found with it was I couldn’t decide whether to do it right-handed or left-handed. I am left-handed, but am currently experiencing quite a bit of discomfort with tennis elbow (it came about from working in the garden, for the Gardening badge), so am needing to adapt some of the activities I do, and how I do them. We ended up playing a game of Snakes and Ladders, where our archery score dictated the moves we made on the board. Sometimes this required a bit of tactical thinking (we needed 2 points to land on a long ladder, and firing an arrow for it to land on the grass got us two points!).

The most exciting and unusual activity was the crate stacking, which didn’t sound so exciting to me. However, once I had seen it done it was more appealing, and hearing that you could do it by yourself, I knew I was going to do it. The idea is simple; you need to build a tower with the crates, and be able to stand on it - climbing it at the same time as building it. You had to hook the crates onto a rope in the centre (this just kept them together once they fell), and climb with the crates. None of the adjacent crates interlocked, so the higher you went the more they wobbled! I enjoyed this challenge, and whilst making the tower, I took the opportunity to take a few photos, and a selfie or two! We each had 20 minutes to build the tower as high as we could. If it was still standing when the time was up, we got to knock it over like a wrecking ball (with the person on the tower being a wrecking ball!). The team down below (who had been handing the crates up) go the knocked over crates out of the way while I just hung around in mid air!

The last activity was the giant swing - where you have a harness on, and are pulled up as high as you want to go, and then you are released - and you swing! You sit back in your harness, and go. Of course, I had to go that little bit further, and decided that I would do the swinging motions with my legs and feet - so that I kept swinging - just like you do on the swings at the park.

A weekend away, not far from home, and a great time! I decided that I couldn’t expect the young people I look after to do these activities if I’m not prepared to have a go at them myself. Life is too short to have regrets, and so making the most of every opportunity is key to enjoying the time we have. I hadn’t planned on doing the Adventurer badge, but am very glad of the opportunity I had to do it. I know there are six activities here, and I needed to do five. I also know that two of the activities are not listed in the syllabus, but both of them are very much of the ilk of the activities listed - so I am counting them as one of the requisite activities.

I’m now wondering when the next chance will arrive to do another Adventurer badge!