DofE International Award Adventurous Journey – A Review from our Bronze Participants, 1st Waterloo Explorer Unit

“Now that I can feel my shoulders again, I’m happy to say that doing the Adventurous Journey was fun, exciting and well challenging. It’s also a very satisfying achievement and it was great getting to know the others better through these journeys.” – FW

On the weekend of 23-24 October 2021, we, the first group of Duke of Edinburgh International Award (Bronze) participants from 1^st Waterloo Explorers, completed our Qualifying Journey of the Adventurous Journey section of the Award.

Before embarking on the journeys, there was a series of essential training sessions to undergo which covered topics such as first aid, cooking with a Trangia, using (packing and carrying) a rucksack, navigation, teamwork and more. Afterwards, there were preparations and planning sessions for the Practice Journey – from route planning and emergency procedures to menu and programme planning and preparing a food budget. It was a journey in itself! We learned a lot and were excited to get going!

“It was quite fun, quite scary at the beginning but afterwards it was fine. I had fun with the group, helped with the food, camp, hike, and map-reading. The food was quite nice. And keeping warm is important!” –  JE

The Practice Journey shed light on both successes and potential improvements we could make to learn from our mistakes and we also discovered that as participants who did not know each other very well to begin with, we were finding out a lot about each other! After this first journey, we made the necessary adaptations for the Qualifying Journey.

“The teamwork was exceptional and unique.” – OP

In many ways, the Qualifying Journey showed how much we had learned while completing this Adventurous Journey section. Although there is always room for improvement, we were able to adapt whenever a situation needed us to change our plans; we could agree (or do our best to!) agree when making decisions and most of all, we were able to maintain a positive attitude even when things became more difficult (and our backs ached under the 15-18kg rucksacks, not to mention when our feet felt like they were on fire!).

“Although some of us liked walking at a slower pace and others faster, the ABBA songs motivated us to all go at the same pace to achieve our goal and reach our final destination.” – AP

Now, we are on the final leg of our Adventurous Journey – our Group report which we are preparing for our Assessor which will include the research we completed for our aim, the preparation and planning we did beforehand, the challenges we faced and how we felt overall.

We are grateful for the opportunity to do our Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award with 1^st Waterloo Explorers, especially since most of us do not attend international schools where the Award is offered. We would never have been able to do it without the support of our Explorer leaders, our Supervisor, our Assessor, our families and all those who have made this journey possible. Thank you!



And from our team leader… “No matter what’s going on in your life, there’s nothing a long hike can’t fix.” – MB