What an incredible experience! I will forever remember my time doing my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Although extremely difficult at times, I was able to persevere, with the encouragement from my new friends/ teammates, and push forward, making myself feel extremely proud. The memories made during my time doing DofE were life changing, and truly beautiful. Although I may not remember specific details, I will always have a warm, happy feeling, a feeling that I will hold close to my heart, forever. I will always remember the feeling of ‘feeling truly alive’. The beautiful scenery, along with pure laughter. It was incredible! I would recommend DofE to anyone. You may not enjoy it at certain times, especially when dragging your tired feet up huge mountains, but the overall experience was unique. I recently completed my Gold Award. Due to COVID-19, I haven’t been awarded it, but that’s something to look forward to and another way to remember the Duke of Edinburgh. My Gold DofE took place in The Lake District. I was warned about the unpredictable weather, but it wasn’t until we got walking that I truly understood what was meant! We were blessed with beautiful, hot weather during our practice walk. It was when it was record breaking heat! That meant we could eat our picnic lunch enjoying the beautiful scenery. We even drank fresh water out of the streams! Played games, bonding as a team: from strangers to friends all wanting to get the most out of our DofE. Singing in the sticky tents and enjoying everything! Then the rain came! Our real expedition we were caught up in terrible weather. At one point we were nearly sent home, meaning that our adventure would have been cancelled. We were cold and soaked. We tried putting tents up, but abandoned that and found shelter in a barn. We sat and drank hot chocolate before getting lifts to another barn where we were able to stay the night!! It was something I had always dreamt of.

Thank you so much for this opportunity