Summer camp diaries

Day Five
The best activity today was abseiling. The instructor was good. Nobody was scared and everyone abseiled, although some of the girls took a long time. Rob spent quite a lot of time in the chalet because he didn't want to meet other kids. He had some naps during the day. Everyone had to do at least one evening activity.

Day Six
Dot had to leave to be a contestant on Blind Date. We were meant to go on a survival course that our mums had put us down for, but we wanted to stay with our group. Luckily, our leader said we didn't have to do the survival course if we didn't want to. I got extra money from Mum because I had spent too much on drinks and it was expensive to use the phone to call home. Our group did dragon boat racing. The boats were big, but they were not real dragon boats.

Day Seven
We travelled home with an escort and Rob's dad met us at Reading Station. I would like to go again for three weeks to see if it gets boring.

For more information, contact 3D Adventure

Outward Bound Centre, Wales

Day One
Our parents put us on the train at Birmingham. The centre is in Aberdovey, Snowdonia National Park, but we missed our station. We got off at the next station and crossed over to the other platform and caught a train back to where we should have been. There was no one to meet us (probably because we were about an hour late) so I legged it up the hill to a phone box and rang mum. Mum rang the centre and they came to pick us up straight away. We made it in time for the start of the course at 5.30pm. Our room was on the ground floor with the other boys. Girls were upstairs. Everyone was nice, except Anna, our dorm leader. Nobody liked her. The one big problem was the plumbing. The toilets were disgusting and we had to use the facilities in another chalet. I took a picture of a big dent in our bedroom door.

Day Two
We were told that some of the grounds were out of bounds because the lawns had been seeded. Rob said this was an outward-bound holiday, not an out of bounds holiday. We played games like 40-40 in the field and then did Jacob's ladder, which was difficult and I didn't manage to complete it. I climbed to the top of a really massive pole and then jumped down, using a trapeze. Rob didn't quite make it. He slipped and fell and got caught in his harness, which hurt. He decided that this week was the week he was scared of heights. The packed lunches were nice. Everyone in the group got to know each other because all of us did the activities together.