The Forest of Dean is a wonderful place lying between the border of England and Wales. There's much plant life and SO many trees; but what else would you expect from a forest?
What brought me here was the Duke of Edinburgh Award. A programme which schools take part in to what I now think is torture the kids and have a good laugh about it. This was our third day of walking, we were supposed to be doing 15 kilometers on this, the last day of our PRACTICE expedition.
The first day was not bad. We had to walk 10 kilometers on a pre-made route from a start point which we were driven to. Bear in mind that some of us were a little surprised to hear that we would be walking on the very same day we arrived, set up the tents and had a late lunch.
There were...lets see...four groups, all of them quite large except my little group of four. It would help you the most with this tale to know what I look like. I'm a sixteen year-old boy, around the average height for my age with black hair growing around my head. I wear glasses and whatever other clothes you want to put on me. Picture any of the humans as you like, none of them have appearances that majorly affect this story.
I'm in a group with three other girls and like I said; the first day was not bad at all. A few blisters, but I didn't have proper walking boots.
The second day was what could only be described as hell. Nothing but hell. It was a 20 km walk starting early in the morning and if I'm honest, the start was not bad at all. We passed a lovely house and didn't meet many obstacles. But then came the hill. Oh God. The hill. At the bottom, we saw a split path, one which led onward alongside the motorway and another which goes uphill for what we thought wouldn't be too long.
It took us 3 hours to get to the top.
From there it was a small hill down to where we saw the testers who helped us get in the right direction. After a few hours of walking, we joined with another group and I was almost completely defeated. I could barely walk at a decent pace and ever step I took on each foot sent a burst of hot pain through by legs.
Then we got lost. I had seen a roadsign pointing us in the right direction but I was too weak to call out or go on my own. So we ended up walking another 5 km.
Now we come to day 3. The final day. The day we go home. But what I am about to tell shows you why I couldn't go home and my mind was out to the test as to how I could stay.