So today the real business end of Woodlands kicked in – with groups out canoeing, caving and climbing.

The real challenge of these activities are perhaps not what you would expect.  Getting to the top of a 20 metre climbing wall?  Easy! Negotiating the high ropes and zip wires up in the canopy? No problem!  Navigating the canal?  A breeze!  Squeezing through tiny gaps in the rock?  Epic!

Not really.

The main challenge, especially on Day Two, is turning up in the right place, at the right time and especially – carrying the right kit.  And trying to live up to another of our focuses for the week – listening to instructions, and acting on them – having heard them only once.

The Woodlands site consists of a grand Victorian house, several annexes and outhouses, and a myriad of different stores and cellars.

And the instructions are multiple, delivered rapid-fire.

‘You’ll need leggings or trackie bottoms, warm socks, a top and bottom base layer, and shoes you don’t mind getting wet.  Once you’ve got those, meet at the small classroom.  Where is that again?  Then, go into the cloakroom (eh?) and find your Woodlands rucksack from the Group 4 (red) section.  Take out your Woodlands fleece and your Woodlands water bottle.  Bring them to the canoe store (OMG is that the one underground, or by the climbing store?).  Then put all of that in a blue plastic barrel.  A barrel?  Next, the canoe store – get fitted for a buoyancy aid, a cag (a what?)  a helmet (a canoe helmet, not a climbing one, or a caving one).  Take a paddle (remembering the colour code on the end) and make your way to the minibus.  Stop!  You’ve forgotten the lunches, the inhalers, the medications and…the canoes!  Oh yeah, sorry!

And this is just the adults!  You regularly see a dishevelled, sleep-deprived teacher wandering lonely about the site, looking for an errant sock or welly boot.  Or wondering whether it was caving or canoeing today.  Eventually they fall into the right minibus and head off.  The children keep them on the straight and narrow.

Re-reading the above, it is no exaggeration.  And that was just for the canoeing.  It’s a miracle that anyone gets anywhere – all this happens by about 9.30 each morning.

Your children have thrown themselves into it all today, as you would expect them to.  Two groups canoeing on the Brecon and Monmouth canal, a group on-site climbing and zipping, and two other groups down the caves at Porth yr Ogof.  Everyone was back by 5 and the showers were busy as everyone scrubbed up for dinner.

This evening, we have been photo-orienteering, with a focus on getting to know the geography and features of the site.  These Woodlands dudes don’t make it easy though – pictures of obscure features of the campus to be found within a time limit – in the dark.

Everyone will sleep well tonight and your young people have done you proud.

More of the same tomorrow.