D of E: Gold Expedition: Brecons July 10th –July 14th 2008

Team: Ashley Barnett, Bhavik Bhadresa, Benjamin Krawiec, Hannah Megaughin , Kevin van der Meij

Supervisors: Mr R.Mardle, Miss C.Mardle

Setting off for South Wales on what was a typical summer’s day, (heavy showers and sunshine), the team were somewhat apprehensive of what was ahead. This was the first `Gold Group’ to undertake an expedition at Colston`s School.

The Assessor met the group at a Priory Mill Campsite in Brecon sometime on the evening of July 10th. All of their kit was checked and thankfully nothing was missing. Were they carrying too much food and clothes? Biggest decision on that day was what to eat and drink at the
splendidly named `Brecon Fish Bar’. All settled down then to a good night’s sleep, avoiding midges. Kevin felt very much at home in a campsite with a few campers from Holland.

Day 1 of the expedition proper saw the group start at a phone booth in the village of Pont ar Hydfer (village = fields, a church, a few sheep and a phone box that does not accept coins). Heavy showers that morning saw the group don waterproofs very quickly. Good progress was made walking through a forest, checking out the Cray Reservoir and up and down hills. A helicopter flew overhead, and no the assessor was not in it.
By 5 p.m. the group arrived at the first campsite in Ystradfellte. Owned by an 80 year old couple, who washed and dried the group’s socks, the group felt tired after a very productive day.

Day 2 and the group checked out some four other reservoirs. Conditions were good for walking and once again the group kept close to their original timings. A bigger campsite awaited the group in Llwyn- on village and some sunshine. Also there was the assessor, camping in the same field! After sorting out a broken pole on a tent, and what could only be described as hot/cold/hot/cold/hot/cold showers (a bit like one of my lessons), the group settled down knowing the hardest day was still to come.

Day 3 and lovely weather with plenty of people out and about on a Sunday. The climb to the Neuadd Reservoirs proved to be a hard graft, and coming down from the high ground near Craig Pwilfa is tough on the knees and ankles. Talybont was the group’s last visit to a reservoir, and by now the last three days’ effort was starting to show. Typical signs included gaiters at half-mast, water running out, the jokes drying up and taking short cuts across fields. Last night camping at Gilestone, and a group from Newport kept the team awake.

Day 4 and cloudy skies and 10km left. All over by 12 p.m., but not before a few detours were needed (footpaths blocked). Finish at a phone booth in the village of Talyllyn. The assessor was very complimentary of the group and rated them in the top 10% of groups he had seen. He reminded them of the report they needed to do ` Reservoirs and their physical and human impacts on the surrounding environment’.

A very big thank you to Dr K. Dawson who spent many hours filling in bits of important paperwork, chasing the Brecon’s D of E panel and giving very sound advice to the group. To the group, 80km with 3 nights camping was achieved with the minimum of fuss, but with maximum effort. They have set a high standard for other groups in the future.

Mr R.Mardle
July 2008

Ben Kraviec's report


After returning home from a challenging, but great, Duke of Edinburgh Expedition and looking back at our four days walking on the Brecon Beacons I can say that it has been enjoyable, although very hard work! Over the four days we travelled 80km, visiting eight different reservoirs, and staying at three campsites.
Our first day was a gentle 23km walk visiting Cray Reservoir half way through the day. Although the weather wasn’t great, with heavy rain showers in the morning, we were glad to reach our campsite (in Ystradfellte), get our tents up and cook some dinner. We were also very pleased that the lady at the campsite took our boots and socks and dried them for us for the morning.

Day two and we had a slightly shorter walk (22km), which everyone found better than the previous day’s trek. We walked the short distance from where we had camped to Ystradfellte Reservoir; it was then a lot of climbing to be able to get into the Taff Fawr Valley where we walked downstream from the Beacons Reservoir, visiting the Cantref and Llwyn-on Reservoirs before pitching our tents at the campsite in Llwyn-on Village.

The third day was the most challenging of our whole expedition; we walked 25km and climbed over 800m. We started with a long walk east from the campsite to Pentwyn Reservoir before heading upstream to the Neuadd Reservoirs. From the Lower Neuadd Reservoir we then started a long, and in places steep, climb up to around 760 metres above sea level. Although it was a long day we were greeted by some amazing views and great scenery. We then had a huge descent back down to Talybont Reservoir, and then a short walk to our final campsite.

Our final day had seen it cloud over a little since the day before, although meant we had ideal weather to walk in. We were all feeling glad that we only had 10km left in order to complete our expedition, but slightly disheartened when we got so close to the end, but found some of the footpaths had been blocked off. Never-the-less we made it to our end point at Talyllyn where we were greeted by Charlotte and Mr. Mardle and our D of E assessor.

We all agreed that we had enjoyed our time on the Brecon Beacons and that had been an enjoyable experience, but not something that all of us would want to do again! Our thanks go to Mr. Mardle and Charlotte Mardle who supervised the expedition and Dr. Dawson who helped out during the planning stages.

Ben Krawiec

(Team: Ben Krawiec, Kevin van der Meij, Hannah Megaughin, Ashley Barnett & Bhavik Bhadresa)

	The team at the end