cont...

18th August 09

The idea behind accommodation was we would stay on campsite and use YHAs; we had three YHAs booked for the whole trip. This worked well for the first few days due to the weather not being too bad. We stayed on our second campsite for just one night, “Treyarnon Caravan and Camping Park”. this was a real tester for all the team, as we had not had a trial run before.

By the time we, the power chair party arrived at “Treyarnon” if I remember rightly the campsite took some finding but was well worth it, the advance party had to put up four tents... Addie was in charge of the kitchen and the mess tent and as well as doing the cooking in this tent, she was to be sharing we also had to charge Alex’s batteries. Besides a lot of the cooking equipment and food in various boxes and cool boxes, we had only two gas rings and a small oven; from this tent hot, tasty food for eight people would emerge. Being organic of course, it tasted superior, and the team admitted that. At the end of a days long run for wheelchair team and the forward team, Adie would put on the table, and so would other team members during our 4 weeks on the road, meals that were hot, very tasty, and tasted as if they had been cooked at home, not in a tent in the middle of a field with rain pouring down. We drank good Fairtrade coffee and the odd bottle of organic wine. I took along some organic bear for the guys. We were all drawn to the mess tent like families to the kitchen. The person who had been with me during the day had the job of feeding me my evening meal…Thanks to all the cooks, and I think everyone had a hand at some part of the challenge at producing a meal. Graham is a dab hand at putting full English breakfasts on the table. I kepted to my diet so only got my full English towards the end of the challenge. Well worth waiting for.

So how did it all work, putting a roof over the heads for eight tied and hungry people for 4 weeks? Feeding them, making sure they had adequate personal washing and cooking facilities as well as looking after me. Looking after my care needs is no easy no mater where we were, in a tent, a church hall, YHA or a hotel…

Our tent consisted of a tent for the guys, a tent for the girls, my tent, which I shared with who ever was dong, the sleepover, the mess tent and Alan our driver of the support van, took his one man tent. We discovered that my tent was too small for the hoist and we had to buy a new one, this had to be exchanged due to the zip breaking...