Lower 4 Camp 2024 

This year's Lower 4 Outdoor Education Camp saw the year group travel to Active Outdoor Pursuits in the Cairngorms National Park. 

As part of the week students chose whether to undertake an expedition. Many of the year group chose to take on this challenge, here is what they had to say:

"With our rucksacks on our backs, we set off from Newtonmore at half nine in the morning. Following a start on a rocky path, the landscape then became marshy and boggy. We walked across the marshy ground for what felt like hours until we reached a small burn. We kept trying to find a way to cross it but there was not anywhere you would not get your feet wet. We decided to create a little stepping stone bridge for everyone. After we were all safely across the burn, the bothy where we were going to have lunch was in sight.

As soon as we all arrived at the bothy we all sat down and rested whilst having lunch. What we did not realise was that we were only halfway, and the rest of the journey was mainly up hill. After lunch we set off through the saddle between hills and gradually climbed up the mountains. Every time we asked our instructor if we had reached the top yet he would say, “yep, this is the top”. But every time it was not, and we soon realised that he was joking with us. Once we did eventually reach the top of the mountain, we were able to see the river where we were going to kayak to the camp site.

Travelling down the river in the kayaks was a lot of fun but it was really hard to steer them. Luckily no one fell in the water.

We set up the tents once at the camp site and made our own dinner and it was unexpectedly quite good. We had lots of fun in our tent until we realised that we didn’t have a pillow for sleeping on so we made a barricade with our bags to act like a pillow. We got to toast marshmallows and enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate around the campfire before we had to go to sleep.

Bright and early the next morning we woke up and  packed up our bags to be ready for the rest of the walk. The walk was very long and we were all tired. Some of us also walked to the Barracks whilst enjoying some Haribo’s. By that time our legs were stiff, we could barely move.

The whole expedition was challenging but we all managed to push through it and, overall, we really enjoyed the whole two days. The camp was fun, and we would definitely recommend it."

Isla and Maggie (L4)

Climbing and Abseiling

"On Lower 4 camp we had the chance to go climbing and abseiling it was a fun experience to test our confidence and face our fears. The day started with us walking up to where we would climb/abseil the sun was shining, and the trees were glimmering and a few minutes later we approached a giant rock wall we didn’t believe we were about to climb! The instructors set up a section for abseiling and two sections for climbing (easy and hard). Some people gave the hard section a go but most stuck to the easy wall. It was great to see almost everyone giving abseiling a go, including the teachers! It was a great challenge and good to learn a new skill."

Elizabeth (L4)