On Wednesday the 20th of September, our Ty year went to Delphi Adventure Centre in Connemara. Before leaving, we all met in the gym with all our bags. Everyone over packed, Alanna even brought a sandwich toaster with her. So we set of for Delphi at approximately 10 o'clock and after around 2, maybe 2 and a half hours, we reached Delphi.
When we arrived we all went into 'The Den' where we ate our lunch whilst the instructor explained to us the rules and the different activities. Then the rooms were assigned but there was a problem with mine, Niamh's and Alsun's original room. After everyone else was showed their rooms, we were brought to a different wing of the hostel where our room was. Although our room was separated from all the others, at least we knew we would have peace and quiet.
For our first activity my group went surfing with Mr. Maguire, while the other group did the high ropes with Mrs. Murtagh. When we arrived to the beach where we went surfing, the instructors showed us (on land) how to paddle and stand up on the board properly. After that we got to test our new skills in the water. The water was bitterly cold when I first went in but i quickly got used to it. To be honest, I wasn't very good at surfing, I was too short for my board so when I tried to stand up it would flip over but I still enjoyed every minute of it. We got back to the resort at about 4:30pm which gave us plenty of time to shower fro dinner, except when we got back we discovered that our shower didn't work. Although this was an inconvience, it was fine because the other girls let us use their showers. We had dinner in the 'Grub Hub' with the other school. They served us chicken curry and rice which wasn't exactly edible but no one really minded because everyone had a brought enough food to feed a small village for a week.
After dinner we had our evening activities in the 'Adventure Hub'. We played games and listened to music, our instructors names was Mike and he was from Mayo but we told him he looked like a John from Australia, but in fairness to us, he did. The activities were actually a lof of fun .
We had our supper then at 9 o'clock in the 'Grub Hub', where we met the rest of our year. No one was particularly looking forward to supper because of how brutal the food at dinner was. We were given cookies which were not only edible, they were actually really nice. We were then given free time before we had to go to bed at 10:30pm. Myself, Niamh and Alsun went back our tiny dorm thinking it was just our luck to get separated from all the others. We quickly got distracted from feeling sorry for ourselves by talking and laughing. We were in the middle of a conversation when we realised that it was 11:30pm and the night guard never came to our room fro lights out.
The next morning we were woken up by a loud knock on the door who we assumed it was the night guard by when I opened the door it was actually three of the other girls wondering why we weren't at breakfast. We went down to the 'Grub Hub' but kept quiet about how we didn't get lights out or a wakeup call because we didn't want lights out. After all the complaining about the room we did, we were really grateful for it after all.
After breakfast we set off for our 27km hike for our gaisce award. The landscape on the hike was absolutely breathtaking but there's no way I would walk the 27km again. The walk was tiring going up hill but it got a lot easier going downhill towards the end.
We got back to the resort, showered and had our dinner. The bolognese was even worse than the curry, from looking at it it seemed like they used oil instead of tomatoes for the sauce. It was vile. After dinner we went out into the forest where we had campfire. We all sat in a circle around the fire built by the instructors and sang. People played the guitar until 2 strings broke and it was pretty much useless. We headed back for our supper which was muffins. Then a group of us played a game boys vs girls soccer and unsurprisingly, the lads won.
The next morning we woke up to the alarms we had to set since we knew we were getting a wake up call. We had breakfast and set off for our final activity, the high ropes. There was three different activities in this but as I'm afraid of heights I only took part in one. As we had extra time left over before lunch we also did the free falling which judging by the way they described it, it was going to be falling at speed but the cord would stop us from hitting the ground or hurting ourselves. This was not the case. It was more like a verticle zip line. It was actually fairly disappointing because although I'm afraid of heights I've always wondered what it would be like to fall from a height.
Overall I really enjoyed our three days in Delphi. I think the experience of being away from the school for more than a few hours as a year really brought us closer together and I think everyone is a lot more comfortable around each other now.
When we arrived we all went into 'The Den' where we ate our lunch whilst the instructor explained to us the rules and the different activities. Then the rooms were assigned but there was a problem with mine, Niamh's and Alsun's original room. After everyone else was showed their rooms, we were brought to a different wing of the hostel where our room was. Although our room was separated from all the others, at least we knew we would have peace and quiet.
For our first activity my group went surfing with Mr. Maguire, while the other group did the high ropes with Mrs. Murtagh. When we arrived to the beach where we went surfing, the instructors showed us (on land) how to paddle and stand up on the board properly. After that we got to test our new skills in the water. The water was bitterly cold when I first went in but i quickly got used to it. To be honest, I wasn't very good at surfing, I was too short for my board so when I tried to stand up it would flip over but I still enjoyed every minute of it. We got back to the resort at about 4:30pm which gave us plenty of time to shower fro dinner, except when we got back we discovered that our shower didn't work. Although this was an inconvience, it was fine because the other girls let us use their showers. We had dinner in the 'Grub Hub' with the other school. They served us chicken curry and rice which wasn't exactly edible but no one really minded because everyone had a brought enough food to feed a small village for a week.
After dinner we had our evening activities in the 'Adventure Hub'. We played games and listened to music, our instructors names was Mike and he was from Mayo but we told him he looked like a John from Australia, but in fairness to us, he did. The activities were actually a lof of fun .
We had our supper then at 9 o'clock in the 'Grub Hub', where we met the rest of our year. No one was particularly looking forward to supper because of how brutal the food at dinner was. We were given cookies which were not only edible, they were actually really nice. We were then given free time before we had to go to bed at 10:30pm. Myself, Niamh and Alsun went back our tiny dorm thinking it was just our luck to get separated from all the others. We quickly got distracted from feeling sorry for ourselves by talking and laughing. We were in the middle of a conversation when we realised that it was 11:30pm and the night guard never came to our room fro lights out.
The next morning we were woken up by a loud knock on the door who we assumed it was the night guard by when I opened the door it was actually three of the other girls wondering why we weren't at breakfast. We went down to the 'Grub Hub' but kept quiet about how we didn't get lights out or a wakeup call because we didn't want lights out. After all the complaining about the room we did, we were really grateful for it after all.
After breakfast we set off for our 27km hike for our gaisce award. The landscape on the hike was absolutely breathtaking but there's no way I would walk the 27km again. The walk was tiring going up hill but it got a lot easier going downhill towards the end.
We got back to the resort, showered and had our dinner. The bolognese was even worse than the curry, from looking at it it seemed like they used oil instead of tomatoes for the sauce. It was vile. After dinner we went out into the forest where we had campfire. We all sat in a circle around the fire built by the instructors and sang. People played the guitar until 2 strings broke and it was pretty much useless. We headed back for our supper which was muffins. Then a group of us played a game boys vs girls soccer and unsurprisingly, the lads won.
The next morning we woke up to the alarms we had to set since we knew we were getting a wake up call. We had breakfast and set off for our final activity, the high ropes. There was three different activities in this but as I'm afraid of heights I only took part in one. As we had extra time left over before lunch we also did the free falling which judging by the way they described it, it was going to be falling at speed but the cord would stop us from hitting the ground or hurting ourselves. This was not the case. It was more like a verticle zip line. It was actually fairly disappointing because although I'm afraid of heights I've always wondered what it would be like to fall from a height.
Overall I really enjoyed our three days in Delphi. I think the experience of being away from the school for more than a few hours as a year really brought us closer together and I think everyone is a lot more comfortable around each other now.