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Duke of Edinburgh Gold Qualifying Expedition
Hey
I'm due to complete my D of E Gold Practice Expedition in the Peaks in July this year and we were told to organise our own qualifying venture.
I was just wondering where anyone has been for their Gold.. and if anyone would be able to help out by suggesting who to contact for open expeditions later in the year?
Thanks
I'm due to complete my D of E Gold Practice Expedition in the Peaks in July this year and we were told to organise our own qualifying venture.
I was just wondering where anyone has been for their Gold.. and if anyone would be able to help out by suggesting who to contact for open expeditions later in the year?
Thanks
hi there,
i did my expedition last july in the Lake District with a company called Brathay, theres a website (i cant remember) but just type it in google and it should come up. Theyre a really good company, they do all sorts of trips all over the world...
And for DofE, you plan and do the practice and then plan and do the actual one. It lasted about 2 weeks (has lots of rest too), generally a good time, so check out the website.
i did my expedition last july in the Lake District with a company called Brathay, theres a website (i cant remember) but just type it in google and it should come up. Theyre a really good company, they do all sorts of trips all over the world...
And for DofE, you plan and do the practice and then plan and do the actual one. It lasted about 2 weeks (has lots of rest too), generally a good time, so check out the website.
Reply 2
cool thanks.
i just looked on the website, looks like it would be great although price is a bit steep at £450 :O
My practice expedition in the Peaks in £80 for a week, although I will definitely consider it, along with the MW Guiding expedition I found in the Brecons.
i just looked on the website, looks like it would be great although price is a bit steep at £450 :O
My practice expedition in the Peaks in £80 for a week, although I will definitely consider it, along with the MW Guiding expedition I found in the Brecons.
Reply 4
well, i went to Chile with Far Frontiers, if you wanted something a bit further from home! It cost about £3000 altogether.
Was the most amazing experience of my life!!!!!!!!!!
Was the most amazing experience of my life!!!!!!!!!!
Reply 5
That sounds fantastic but I do not want to spend too much because I want to see about going to Senegal to volunteer in order to practise my French before I go to Uni in 2009 and these things don't come cheap :/
Thanks for the suggestion though
Thanks for the suggestion though
Reply 6
i see waht you mean.
we did our practice in derbyshire with a guy called paul, who was really mean! it was hard work, cold and tiring, especially sleeping on a hill, on top of sheeps skulls, with torn ligaments in your ankle!
chile was amazing, but if i could choose again i would go somewhere with something that is actually individual to the country, like machu picchu in peru, or something similar.
it doesnt really matter where you do it though, some people at my school went to the peak district again instead of chile, and we all end up with the same qualification, just different experiences.
for me, chile was a really eye-opener and really tested my self-belief and my ability to carry on, no matter how hard it is
sorry, that was a bit off topic!
we did our practice in derbyshire with a guy called paul, who was really mean! it was hard work, cold and tiring, especially sleeping on a hill, on top of sheeps skulls, with torn ligaments in your ankle!
chile was amazing, but if i could choose again i would go somewhere with something that is actually individual to the country, like machu picchu in peru, or something similar.
it doesnt really matter where you do it though, some people at my school went to the peak district again instead of chile, and we all end up with the same qualification, just different experiences.
for me, chile was a really eye-opener and really tested my self-belief and my ability to carry on, no matter how hard it is
sorry, that was a bit off topic!
Reply 8
Contact your local council to find out who your local D of E co-ordinator is. Check out the D of E website for upcoming ventures, award authorities, advice, etc.
Going through one of these smaller companies, like Brathay, is simply paying for your award, bribery in a sense. I have never heard of them failing anyone, they're not keen on upsetting their customers, its a commercial organisation. Going through your local council is much cheaper and much more rewarding. I have heard of some of these companies even designing route plans, meal plans and the like, essential skills and aspects of the D of E expedition side. Also these commercial companies do run soft options in areas that aren't really up to the gold standard. Brathay offers expeds in the lake district which isn't really wild enough for a gold venture, its a soft option. Again, somewhere more extreme like Snowdonia is far more rewarding even if you walk through low cloud and force 9 storms for a couple of days at a time, up and down mountains.
Plus by going through the council you get a couple of weeks to a month break between expeditions which most of these commercial companies cut back on or simply don't offer. While after my gold practice and qualifying i could go further, i did really need the time to recover. In both ventures i lost half a stone in 5 days, i needed that bit of extra time to put the weight back on and recover, if you don't you get progressively weaker, run down and risk injury and/or not being able to complete it at all. And that was from consuming around 4000cals a day.
Going through one of these smaller companies, like Brathay, is simply paying for your award, bribery in a sense. I have never heard of them failing anyone, they're not keen on upsetting their customers, its a commercial organisation. Going through your local council is much cheaper and much more rewarding. I have heard of some of these companies even designing route plans, meal plans and the like, essential skills and aspects of the D of E expedition side. Also these commercial companies do run soft options in areas that aren't really up to the gold standard. Brathay offers expeds in the lake district which isn't really wild enough for a gold venture, its a soft option. Again, somewhere more extreme like Snowdonia is far more rewarding even if you walk through low cloud and force 9 storms for a couple of days at a time, up and down mountains.
Plus by going through the council you get a couple of weeks to a month break between expeditions which most of these commercial companies cut back on or simply don't offer. While after my gold practice and qualifying i could go further, i did really need the time to recover. In both ventures i lost half a stone in 5 days, i needed that bit of extra time to put the weight back on and recover, if you don't you get progressively weaker, run down and risk injury and/or not being able to complete it at all. And that was from consuming around 4000cals a day.
ch0c0h01ic
Going through one of these smaller companies, like Brathay, is simply paying for your award, bribery in a sense.I have never heard of them failing anyone , they're not keen on upsetting their customers, its a commercial organisation. Going through your local council is much cheaper and much more rewarding. I have heard of some of these companies even designing route plans, meal plans and the like, essential skills and aspects of the D of E expedition side. Also these commercial companies do run soft options in areas that aren't really up to the gold standard. Brathay offers expeds in the lake district which isn't really wild enough for a gold venture, its a soft option. Again, somewhere more extreme like Snowdonia is far more rewarding even if you walk through low cloud and force 9 storms for a couple of days at a time, up and down mountains.
firstly, i disagree with almost everything youve said here. they have actually failed people before, and you cant say that they havent due to your own knowledge. also, they do not design everything for you; we plan our own routes, make a list of food that we would like to take with us on the expedition which they then go to buy for us, and generally what we do is up to ourselves.
I dont really understand what you mean by "wild enough" the lake district was a nice place to do my expedition in, we had to set up our tent in god knows where each night. And it is most definitely not a soft option, it is down to our own determination to carry on with the expedition; everything that we did, was done by us, and us alone . The example you gave with snowdonia; well I went there about a week after my DofE expedition climbing 14 mountains in 4 days and i have to say that was a breeze compared to the expedition. We had all sorts of walking in the lakes; hilly land, flat land, dry and wet land, everything. The weather wasnt great either we had pourdowns and harsh winds; its not fair of you to dismiss the lakes as "soft" and snowdonia is by no means harder.
I did my practice in the Brecons and am doing my qualifying in Snowdonia. Gold standard should be 8 hours walking each day for 4 days, and camping for 3 nights, and if possible you should also do some wild navigation and/or wild camping. Somewhere like the Lakes is also probably alright, although I reckon the Peak District is possibly more silver level. You need rough ground, lots of up and down and more testing navigation (somewhere like the Peaks has really clear footpaths etc and isn't really as challenging as the Brecon Beacons). If you wanted to go abroad you could consider somewhere a bit closer to home, such as the Pyrenees - I know some people who did their Gold qualifying there. Also my local centre ran out of space for the easter expedition so my group's doing it with a district outdoors centre, which costs about £250 including kit hire. It's probably worth contacting local places before looking at private companies. (Edit: Just found the website here; you probably have something similar near you.)
Reply 11
karmenchiu
firstly, i disagree with almost everything youve said here. they have actually failed people before, and you cant say that they havent due to your own knowledge. also, they do not design everything for you; we plan our own routes, make a list of food that we would like to take with us on the expedition which they then go to buy for us, and generally what we do is up to ourselves.
I dont really understand what you mean by "wild enough" the lake district was a nice place to do my expedition in, we had to set up our tent in god knows where each night. And it is most definitely not a soft option, it is down to our own determination to carry on with the expedition; everything that we did, was done by us, and us alone . The example you gave with snowdonia; well I went there about a week after my DofE expedition climbing 14 mountains in 4 days and i have to say that was a breeze compared to the expedition. We had all sorts of walking in the lakes; hilly land, flat land, dry and wet land, everything. The weather wasnt great either we had pourdowns and harsh winds; its not fair of you to dismiss the lakes as "soft" and snowdonia is by no means harder.
I dont really understand what you mean by "wild enough" the lake district was a nice place to do my expedition in, we had to set up our tent in god knows where each night. And it is most definitely not a soft option, it is down to our own determination to carry on with the expedition; everything that we did, was done by us, and us alone . The example you gave with snowdonia; well I went there about a week after my DofE expedition climbing 14 mountains in 4 days and i have to say that was a breeze compared to the expedition. We had all sorts of walking in the lakes; hilly land, flat land, dry and wet land, everything. The weather wasnt great either we had pourdowns and harsh winds; its not fair of you to dismiss the lakes as "soft" and snowdonia is by no means harder.
Wow, read in between the bits you've bolded. I wasn't talking solely about Brathay but about many of the commercial organisations out there. Many of the companies fail nobody or only in very extreme circumstances because they're a company and they don't want to piss off any future clients or tarnish their reputation. Some of the companies do have pre planned routes which you can follow instead of planning your own. That is simply what i found out when i was researching into it, i can't say that i did my D of E gold with 20 different commercial operators and i severely doubt you did either.
Through the award organisers that i used they mentioned the Lake District as not as challenging and/or wild as somewhere like Snowdonia or the Highlands (they class Snowdonia and the Highlands as gold territory and the Lake District and the New Forest as silver territory). The terrain is much more rugged and mountainous (Snowdon is the highest mountain in England and Wales and we climbed it twice), the weather far more extreme (on both expeds we experienced storms strong enough to blow away and/or flatten tents alongside localised flooding, fog and low cloud, etc) alongside a host of other factors. There were extreme weather warnings in the areas that we were in and we did get the brunt of it. Walking through force nine storms for days on end isn't fun. Trying to shivering to sleep in a wet sleeping bag because you're campsite flooded isn't comfortable.
Doing 14 mountain in 4 days is no extreme feat. That works out at about 3-4 peaks a day. Given that Snowdonia is the highest mountain at 1000ish m and we did it in 2 hours carrying full packs, someone with daysacks and good weather could probably do it in under 1.5 hours probably around an hour, that leaves you at least 7 hours to get another few peaks in. With the proximity and altitude of some of the mountains its possible to do 7 or more in a day.
Reply 12
We went to Borneo (Malaysia), and summitted Mt. Kinabalu (highest in South East Asia 4km above sea level). It was real fun, bloody scary, it took 2 days to reach the summit, and on the second day we began trekking at 2am to see the sunrise at the top. When we reached the bottom, everyone was half dead. That evening, we were all in pain, can't even descend a 10cm high step. We also did some river rafting.
Some group did the Tongariro crossing in New Zealand. I did that for Silver.
I believe there's DoE in many countries around the world and international schools do it but it's called the International Award for Young people (IYA).
EDIT: Actually Gold candidates split up to 2 trips (trekking, kayaking), the kayaking people went to Koh Chang (Thailand).
Some group did the Tongariro crossing in New Zealand. I did that for Silver.
I believe there's DoE in many countries around the world and international schools do it but it's called the International Award for Young people (IYA).
EDIT: Actually Gold candidates split up to 2 trips (trekking, kayaking), the kayaking people went to Koh Chang (Thailand).
Reply 15
Hi,
Is there anyone who wants to come on an expedition for the gold award in North Wales on 21st - 25th April 08?
I'm trying to complete my Gold DOE Award before I go off to work abroad. I've found an organisation (m.w guiding) that can run an expedition (which can be treated as a practice or qualifying) for Gold participants on 21st April, as long as there is a minimum of four people!
The problem is we're now short of two people, so there are two free places available if you can cope with the short notice!
Emily
Is there anyone who wants to come on an expedition for the gold award in North Wales on 21st - 25th April 08?
I'm trying to complete my Gold DOE Award before I go off to work abroad. I've found an organisation (m.w guiding) that can run an expedition (which can be treated as a practice or qualifying) for Gold participants on 21st April, as long as there is a minimum of four people!
The problem is we're now short of two people, so there are two free places available if you can cope with the short notice!
Emily
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