After about 3 hours of walking everyone seemed to have hit the wall, Exhausted, Annoyed, and Frustrated and just wanted to know how long was left. When we reached the main road the group was enlightened and exultant. We reached the Hostel in 4hrs 30mins! 24KM later. Dinner went down a treat!
There always seemed to be a war for the plug sockets every night – You were lucky if you got to charge your phone for 5 minutes before someone would plug it out! When it came close to bed time, everyone left the main room and went into their bedrooms - two of which were “staying up rooms” and one of which was the “sleeping room” two of the bedrooms had about 18 people each and the one that I was in had 4! I suppose no-one wanted to actually sleep.
The first morning after breakfast we were told to get ready and that we would be going orienteering and rock-climbing in the morning followed by kayaking in the afternoon. My group and I set out orienteering – Let’s just say it was very eventful! Not many people did the rock-climbing but I gave it a go - I reached a point of fear where I didn’t even know my left from my right. It was a point of no return, after finally getting over the hurdle, I was then going to abseil back down which was a lot easier and enjoyable. We went back to the hostel for lunch and set back out to go kayaking in the afternoon- It was a convivial atmosphere!
We returned to the hostel for dinner and following dinner people played pool and table tennis. That concluded our second day.
On the third morning we got up, had breakfast and there was a checklist of items you need to bring to Achill Island to go surfing- We set off on the bus journey to Achill. When we hit the beach in Achill, everyone put on wetsuits and got a board. Surfing made a great trip even better! The waves were big, the weather was delightful and the day for surfing could not have been better! Following surfing we had a barbeque beside the bus. We then went to another beach to play football and what we saw was fascinating – A white baby seal making its way from the beach back to the water, it seemed to be injured but it happily swam away.
On the fourth day we went surfing again but the waves weren’t as big and exciting. On the fourth night there was a bonfire that warmed us all up and then we toasted marshmallows and were told we were going out into the woods to sleep there! We each got a big bivvy bag and set out on the hour hike to get to the suitable location. The rain had stopped so it was an ok night until about 1:45AM when the downpour started. Everyone began to get soaked and people began to get up around 2:15AM when they could no longer sleep in a puddle of water!James (The instructor) told us that we could leave at 4:30 instead of 5:30! We set out on the hike back to the hostel and it felt like we were hiking for hours when we finally reached the hostel. It was a trip that was not to be missed!