Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award?

I've really enjoyed the scheme so far and was wondering if anyone has done their Gold? It looks really rewarding, so I would just like to hear any personal experiences you have of it. Thank you! 😊

Me! It's been really rewarding - what would you like to know?

Ah, great! Right now I'm just considering the residential. What did you do for yours? ☺

Me! It's been really rewarding - what would you like to know?

what was the expedition like? (i'm extremely unfit so i hate them xD)

A fun challenge? I love long walks but I have really bad Asthma, so that's my excuse for struggling more than my team members at some points It's definitely doable though - it's easier than you'd think. By the time you've done all the practise training, etc. it really shouldn't be difficult.

It was a great experience and I have so many memories from it
I'd do it again...

I did my practise expedition in the Brecon Beacons and my real one in Snowdonia

ah, i've also done bronze and silver and i almost died on both of them xD i always kept the team behind but they all supported me generally, Only good thing about being the slowest is that i don't have to carry any of the equipment such as tent etc xD it's a brilliant opportunity to carry less xD

Perhaps you ought to get advice from your surgery about whether you are fit enough to participate? It's good your group has been willing to support you and let you off without doing your fair share. We had one pretty lazy girl in our group (I'm not saying that's your problem at all) who whinned and cried at every juncture, and another who also really struggled because she had been lazy about training beforehand. We wanted to push the first one over the mountainside by the time we finished. We were a bit more forgiving of the second as she didn't whine quite so much and was determined to finish. But they sure as hell made it way more difficult for the rest of us. They had also been part of our group for bronze and silver and tbh we were fed up that the most whinny one decided to go for gold as none of the other groups would include her. The expeditions can be dangerous and I think you ought to think very carefully that your asthma isn't going to be a liability to the whole group. After all it's bound to annoy them if you are unable to manage the expedition with the result that they all fail. Sorry honestly don't mean to be unkind.

go for it! great fun and i reckon it's what got me a place at uni

surgery? wat...
unfortunately i have been shunned by my group quite a lot in the past due to me doing no exercise whatsoever(this was bronze) and the basically got ridiculously pissed off with me. However currently i am running about 1km each morning and on every Satuday i participate in a 5 km park run(which happens around the country) for my physical section as well as getting more fit.

things are slowly changing but i hope things change enough for me to do gold without holding my team back too much...

Surgery = Doc/Community nurse! N.E terminology 😊
We wouldn't have shunned you. In fact I think we would've been really impressed by your go-do attitude. We got pissed off by one of our team who had no excuse to not pull her weight other than acting the princess. (By way I'm a girl too despite my user name!). She'd been like that on every expedition. She didn't even pull her weight when it came to doing her presentation. She was the only one who made excuse that she was grounded and unable to meet up with the rest of us to compile it, yet she was out to a party that same night. Having 'carried' her on the actual expedition we were just furious at her for not even helping with the last bit. We couldn't complain about her of course because we would've all failed. Maybe you can understand why we were really pissed off with her. Another of our group had an ankle injury - she completed it without a murmur.
My wee cousin has bad asthma and he wouldn't even consider attempting bronze never mind gold.

Ah well actually i forgot to mention that there was a 2 year gap from when i did bronze and i started to do some exercise xD.

Dam she sounds even worse than me, i mean sometimes the really fit and athletic people offered to take my bag up hills to help speed up the expedition going up hills(i suck as going up hills but i'm awesome at flat areas and going down hills) but dam girl sounds like she just got u guys to do everything while she got pat of the reward without doing barely anything. Like physically carry her? or just like take her bags all the way? Yea if you fall out as a group or if things don't work then you fail as a group which sucks. Ouch an ankle injury + walking must've been very difficult for her :/

You don't sound anything like her at all. When we did bronze it was a mixed group and she made such a fuss that the boys all took turns to carry her bag. The other girl was just lazy about doing exercise and training but did her best to keep up and she didn't shirk her chores.

Best bit is we won't ever have to put up with her laziness again!

Keep up your training though because it will stand you in great stead. Not all expeditions involve hiking up mountain paths. One of our school groups that couldn't manage to the Alps because of family commitments did their exp in the Cairngorms. I think that exp was on the lower slopes but they'd to deal with the cold - we got the heat😜

well that's good to hear, yea ppl have been really bugging me about exercise because i did virtually none. In other words i did no exercise. I got to a boarding school and board and we have afternoon metting at about 5:30pm before homework time etc.During the meeting one of the teachers on duty announced there was a park run on Saturday and he asked who was going to go do it, for a split second no-one put their hand up to go and do a run. As soon as i put my hand up, there was a round of applause for me >.> -.- . So yea that's how ppl view me in terms of exercise, it's amazing he's actually doing exercise, it's a miracle etc all that.

my expeditions suck ;( all my expedition including practise ones and navigation days(if you have done that before) all had me going up mountains

Yes we had the formal training days for navigation kit inspections etc ice that you did them. They need to be signed off as well as the actual expedition.

Not everyone enjoys sports and stuff. I've always been quite sporty and enjoy exercise but there's plenty of my friends that need pushing and prodding to move their butts