Gaisce

Today is the day that we go on our Gaisce Hike. Since the start of the year we have been working towards our Gaisce Bronze Award. 

There are 4 different things you do to complete the Bronze Award. You do 3 different activities for 13 weeks and then an overnight journey. For the activities there are categories, you need to each a Community Involvement where you help your community in some way, a Personal Skill where you learn something new and a Physical Activity where you play a sport or that. For mine I did a Scout Leader for my community involvement, I did Life Safety for my personal skill and I did Camogie for my physical activity.


Then the overnight journey is where you have to complete a 25km hike over 2 days. So today some of us are off to Kippure in the Wicklow Mountains to complete our 25km hike. Tomorrow we will also be doing some activities that Kippure offer like High Ropes, Leap of Faith and Archery. It should be so fun, I can't wait.

Driving at last!!

On Monday my class went to the Leinster School of Driving to learn all about, well driving!! We left school at 9:00 to head to Maynooth to the driving school. When we arrived we were split into two groups, Group 1 and Group 2. I was in Group 2, we went driving first. We went into groups 3 and stood beside a car. When the instructor came over Aisling Doran said she'd go first at driving so myself and Aisling Kavanagh got into the back seats. It was the 2 Aisling's first time driving so the instructor explained everything to us first before handing Aisling the key! She started up the car and away we were!! We each drove for 20 mins each and then another 15 mins each after that, so altogether we were driving for about 35 mins. We did a circle of the course and then went down the driveway to the school. We went through 2 sets of gates a ramp at each and just before the main road we turned around at a little round-a-bout. We then went back up the driveway and back onto the course where the instructor told us to go left or right. We then drove down the driveway and back before switching around. I went second driving. I had driven once before that day, but only the very basics. Anyway I got in the driver seat, adjusted the mirror, put on my seatbelt (safety first!) and away I went. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was so much fun.

After each of us drove the first 20 mins, we went back to the start. This time we went around the course and went up onto the hill. We then stopped on the hill and did a hill start. I was nervous at first for the hill start and stopping on the hill but it was perfectly fine. We then went somewhat down the driveway and came back up. This time we stopped before getting to the course and reversed the car. I was also nervous to reverse but again it was fine. After each of us finished we went for lunch.

The Course

After lunch we swapped around, the first group were out in the cars and we were inside. We did a mock theory test in our groups of 3. After doing the test we had a bit of fun. We were shown road signs and had to come up with funny answers for the signs. After that we went outside to a little shack where we each had a go at wearing drunk goggles. The goggles blurred our vision and make it seem like we were drunk. We then had to pick up a cone, place it on top of another cone and then high five the instructor. It was really funny watching everyone.

Overall it was a brilliant day out but we came back at lunch so had 3 classes left until we went home, but I'd definitely so it again.