Above : Feeling left out as the guides all get to go crate climbing.
Above : Trying to drop some hints to the instructor.
Above : Harnessed up and ready to go.
We hope Paddy and the guides enjoyed themselves at Fordell and look forward to seeing them again soon.
Away from activities and there's been quite a bit of work going on at the centre. As mentioned a few months ago, the quad track has now gone and is gradually being turned back into a grassy camping area. The photos below give you an idea of how much it's changed (and these are a month or so old, so it should be looking even more different now). Now we're nearly into the winter season, there'll be a lot more time soon to spend on various projects and odd jobs around the centre, so look out for lots of exciting (?) photos here.
Above/below : old quad track before/after clearing and topsoil.
Despite the end of the summer, the weekends are still pretty busy for now- lots of groups either camping or popping in for activities. A mix of weather with a few cracking days and a few dreadful ones too.
Above : Don't leave animals in hot cars!
A couple of weeks ago we ran some activities for the Pentland Challenge, which was an activity camp based at Bonaly and organised/run by the Scottish Fellowship. Due to the large number of participants at the event, a few groups were brought over from Edinburgh on the saturday where they took part in some of our activities (climbing, jacobs ladder, challenge course, low ropes, etc).
Above : Craig discovers the chilli pepper which has been comically planted in his shepherd's pie.
After a particularly busy saturday, the staff retired for an enormous meal of shepherd's pie, only to be called into action immediately after it was discovered that one of the toilets in the toilet block had a bit of a problem. Brian was unanimously elected as chief toilet-unblocker while the rest watched and learned from a safe distance (the staffhut). The photo below gives an idea of the seriousness of the problem...
Above : No comment required.
Above : Brian telling an enthralled audience about his near-death encounter in the toilets.
That's all for now folks, as the blogmeister has to rush off to Dunfermline to help with his Explorers, but we'll be back in a couple of weeks with another update so stay tuned.
Disclaimer : no real dogs or fluffy animals were harmed during the making of this blog post.
