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Last Monday we went to Carlingford Adventure Centre in Co. Louth. I was forced to get up at 6:20 am, to be at the local petrol station before the bus left at 7:00 am. We were on the road by 7:05 and when we reached our destination, we were greeted by a lovely little stone village. Our first activity was schedueled for 10:30 and we didnt know what to expect. We were sent straight to the upstairs common room to be divided into 2 groups- one of 30 and another of 37. I was in the group of 37 with all of my friends and we were sent outside to put our bags into one of the storage rooms. While out there, we were told to put on camo suits. We were then given blue or red laser guns which made it clear that we were about to do laser tag. All 37 of us then trudged up the side of a mountain complaining about the guns being really heavy, about how it was very early to be doing this much exercise, and the weather (rain, as usual). when we were at the forest, we saw that there were small fences made of wood and tree branches. The place was set up really well. We started playing some games and in the end, the other team won 3/4 of them :( . Hope for the blue team was not lost however because there was still a day and a half of fun activities to go.
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After lunch, we went out to a large field just outside of the village. There were lots of team games set up for the groups to complete. We had to do various activities and we were rewarded in gems. The team who had earned the most gems won. we had to complete a giant labyrinth without talking or making any sort of sound, using 6 ropes we had to lift a hexagon shaped piece of wood over a wooden pole without knocking over the ball that was balancing on top and set it down over another wooden pole with a ball on it without knocking THAT one over, and we had to all join hands and get the entire team through a giant spiderweb structure made of ropes (without making any noise or making contact with the ropes - by far the hardest challenge). After we had done all that and some extra activities, we were all starving for some food.
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After we finished dinner, we were assigned our rooms. Luckily, I was in a room with all of my friends. We had a chat and played connect 4 and then we went to the upstairs common room to talk to the other group. We ended up playing table tennis and eating maltesers and jelly tots.
We were out again by 7:30 pm. We were doing night time activities next. We went back up to the forest we were in at the start of the day and were told to put on blindfolds. We had to walk beside a rope, in a forest, in the dark, wearing a blindfold. I was terrified. After stumbling around the place for about 10 minutes, we played a game of forest ninjas. We had to run up to a person without them noticing. After that, we went back to the centre. On the way, the leaders brought us to a "tunnel". It was actually just a storm drain. We had to crawl through it. It was no taller or wider than one meter and it felt like it went on FOREVER. It was very scary, but we all got through it.
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The next morning, after sleeping through the alarm, we had to take the sheets off the beds and put them out to be washed. We packed our bags and went down for breakfast. when we finished, we went to the field outside the village and got ready for more activities. First, we did archery. I felt like an in-experienced Katniss Everdeen as i managed to hit the target 98% of the time... Next, we moved on to body zorbing. We got into small plastic bubbles with our legs sticking out and we had to try and knock each other over. Our next activity involved our whole team working together to get out of a pitch black maze. After 40 minutes, we figured it out.
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When we had finished our lunch, we were taken down to the ocean. we were all given wet suits, kayaks and paddles. We had to paddle out to a small raft to tie our boats down, then we had to jump into the water (which was freezing) and swim out to a trampoline. when we got up there we got about 5 minutes to jump around and then the leaders started literally throwing us off into the sea. Then they brought us to a small cave and we had to go into it and stick our heads under as small waterfall as it apparently gave us an extra 24 hours of life. We went back to where we started in our kayaks, got dressed, walked back to the centre, collected our bags, and got back on the bus.
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We all had a great time at Carlingford and we hope to do something like it again soon.
