My adventure was when I was at Primary School in primary 7, when our teacher offered us to go to Caldercruix Outdoor Centre, which included hill walking, orienteering and canoeing. At lunchtime at school we gathered at the football pitch then started to put forward names to Mrs Divers, our teacher. I was volunteered by school mates to hand Mrs Divers the names as she was a crabbit old git and I knew how to deal with her. I had a list of 15 names, 8 boys and 7 girls. I opened the class door and went straight to Mrs Divers. She just smiled at me and said, ‘Well done Gerald for doing this.’ So we got forms to get our parents to sign but most of us just signed it ourselves. So we handed them in the next day and then were given an information sheet about the centre.
So Monday morning came, the mini-bus was waiting for us to go then travelled towards Caldercruix. We were then met by the staff, took to our rooms, unpacked and got told to get ready for some hill walking. We all looked at each other, we couldn't be bothered but it was better than being at school. So boots on, heavy jackets on, we got into the mini-bus and travelled 30 minutes. Then we got out and started hill climbing through moss soaking wet with the wind blowing, freezing cold. We all looked at each other saying ‘Never again,’ but I thought it was good.
After our hill walking we got back to the mini-bus and Mrs Divers was sitting there, she didn't take part. Next we went back to the outdoor centre. We dry off, shower, get into dry clothes, then got told that tomorrow we are going canoeing. Oh! 3 classmates can't swim, so it left 12 to go. However 5 of our classmates didn't make it the next day as they missed being away from home. Mrs Divers was not happy.
Tuesday we get breakfast, grab a packed lunch and get ready to go canoeing. We went to the local pond, got the canoes out then we got safety talks. And off we went, so class-mates were splashing each other and tipping each other, then the instructor shouted us in and suggested we capsized. Freezing water, great! So we did it and then again back to the centre as we were all freezing cold and moaning but no one was listening to us pupils. The teacher was laughing her head off. By this time we all wanted to go home. So Wednesday came and the teacher said nothing was happening due to thunderstorms. ‘Yes! We can sit and talk, no-way?!’ But Mrs Divers gave us some writing to do. Thursday we were rained off again, so when Friday came we were ready to go home. We loaded the mini-bus up and got ready to leave. On our travels it broke down, great. We sat for 4 hours until a mechanic came to fix it. I'll never forget this adventure in a hurry, it still haunts me!