Heatree Day 2
After a (surprisingly) quiet night last night, we woke to a rather damp, grey and drizzly morning here in Devon. One of our instructors cheerfully told us that it wasn’t due to rain this morning – but about 45 mins later it started, and it still hadn’t finished as we went to sleep! Not to be deterred, we headed up the hill after breakfast to the “Cycle” activities, which saw the children re-creating the cycle of water, air and sadly toxins, within a plant’s life. There followed an exercise in “connectivity” which showed the children how everything in life is connected and how damage to just one area can have a much broader impact – with hilarious consequences as they were all tied, and tangled up, with each other with different coloured ropes. Strangely, they all enjoyed “dying” – but then had time to reflect upon the enormity of the impact that we humans are having on our environment.
Lunch, inside today, was followed with “Mission Impossible”, an orienteering task which garnered points towards equipment needed for the afternoon’s raft-building. Tom Cruise eat your heart out – Sherfield pupils made short work of the points gathering and then set to work, in teams, building their rafts. With perhaps just a few hints from the instructors we soon had three serviceable craft, and then the fun really started. Lottie was the first in “the drink”, but was swiftly followed by Joshie, Thomas and Lucas. There were some rather hapless attempts to steer the rafts around the lake, and in no time at all it was time to choose the race competitors. Two teams of four were up against a two-person raft and it looked as though “Malindia” of Warriner’s Warriors were going to run away with it…. until they capsized, leaving both floundering in the water and allowing the Super Survivors to take first place. Having circumnavigated most of the lake before making it back to the start, team Banana finally claimed second place.
Thanks to the weather, our camp fire activity this evening was cancelled, but it did give us some down time to write postcards home, catch up with some diary writing and take part in some very noisy pool and football tournaments! The River Lemon beckons in the morning – with the promise of ice-creams on the beach at Teignmouth in the afternoon, WHATEVER the weather!
