Sophie's Gold Expedition
Pulling into Hathersage train station, on a particularly miserable Saturday morning, the distinct ‘shock of capture’ feeling was already setting in. Multicoloured bags began appearing around the village and train station, it was clear that we were all here for one thing only: to go somewhere else. As 10:30 hit and our instructor led us to our assembly centre, I knew the final stage of the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award was finally here; one week to the finish line.
Met by 34 other total strangers and instantly divided into groups of seven, I quickly came to the realisation that in my group at least, at the grand age of 22, I was a grandmother. Having returned to the DofE programmes for the first time following a seven-year gap from my Bronze, I was significantly older than those around me, yet little was I to know how little that would come to matter. Our awkward introductions were broken when our team leader, Jen Roberts, came to introduce herself. Her only team in this expedition, we were ready for what lay in wait.
What was to follow was a week of camaraderie, healthy competition and sheep. Lots of sheep. As we trekked across all manner of terrains, battling with both the elements and us, the previously-impenetrable walls between us began to come down. Working together to account for all of our individual strengths and abilities, we became an efficient and skilled unit, traversing our routes at record speeds, making minor mistakes if any and keeping morale high despite the challenge. Reaching kilometres of height, stretching miles of distance, and with scenery to rival anything you’ve ever seen before, we grew as individuals, and as a team.
And it was this team, that halfway through an expedition, having made a minor navigational error that sent them descending hundreds of metres into a ravine, traversing slippery terrain the entire way down, rallied to correct course. Trekking back up that same hillside, correcting course and powering through, together, we regained our lost ground, and even reached our goal before teams that had not taken such an excessive detour – and who said teamwork doesn’t make the dream work! And all the while, we took our time to investigate local livestock distribution, try our hand at landscape photography, and even play ‘Spot the Assessor’, a pastime much more enjoyable than you’d imagine!
As our group marched along the road in Matlock Bath, train station and finish line in sight, no longer were we seven strangers from across the country. No longer were we the individuals we had arrived as, grandmothers and all. Instead, we were, and became, Team Five, a bond that had carried us up mountains, through valleys and further than we had thought possible. The expedition may have been a single week, but we had memories that would last longer. And as well as achieving our own Gold Awards, we were all to be a part of many others’.
