On Friday, 4th of December, Transition Year students were once again away on another trip. This trip was more local than others, and it was a trip where we went out on a hill walk.
We left the school after our first class, at 10 O’Clock, and headed on a bus to Leenan, outside Urris in Clonmany, where we were met by our guide for the day – Charlie McCarron, who is also the man who is in charge of the TY Tourism Enterprise project, which we will start this January. We were also accompanied by one of the PE Teachers & TY Tutors in Crana College – Mr McMullan, as well as a group of Spanish Students, accompanied by the Spanish Language Assistant in our school – Julia.
We arrived at the foot of the hill, at about 11 O’Clock, where we began to walk. The initial climb at the start of the hill was probably the most challenging for me, as I felt that this was because we were still getting accustomed to the concept of climbing, however we were still walking on a paved pathway, and therefore we had time to get ready to properly begin to climb. As the hill began to get steeper, it started to be easier to walk!
After about an hour and a half of walking, we reached a lake, and we had our a break, where we ate our lunch. It was extremely windy where the lake was and it was very cold, however we braced the elements, ate our lunch swiftly, before moving on with our hill walk. Shortly after our lunch, we had reached the summit of the hill. It was very surreal being at the summit, as it was like being on a very high cliff, looking over Lough Swilly despite being at the summit of a hill.
On our descent, we took a different route back down the hill. This route was quite steep, and quite slippy, and needless to say some of us managed to fall! Luckily enough I didn’t fall, and remained dry for the duration of the walk! When we reached a more gradual descent down the mountain, we began to walk in pairs or groups, where I made my way back to the bus with Thomas.
We reached the buses at about 2:00, and headed back to school to be in time for our buses home. This trip was really fun, and actually was one of my favourite trips in TY so far. A big thanks to Charlie McCarron, for taking time out of his schedule to guide us on this hill walk!
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