Georgia Greaves, 12, and her sister, Ella, 10, spent a magical five days at adventure camp, Wickedly Wonderful, in Sussex
a huge success with good views, good wild- life, a delicious lunch and the wonderful sense of achievement that even the children bought into. Day two was a little
more testing with the children rebelling at the thought of more walking. Surely they had a tick in that box and it was time to hang out and play? Happily, most mountain resorts have far more than hiking on offer – high rope adventure courses, sailing, windsurfing, kayaking, tennis etc. We therefore settled on an adrenalin-fuelled day of high rope adventure with a cleverly designed course that meant my son could follow the adults and my daughter followed a smaller, but equally impressive, under 8’s course. We all ended with happy smiles, great photos and a huge sense of achievement. Day three and I was determined to get them back into their hiking boots, this time for a three-hour walk to a remote mountain restaurant. Day one was of course too good to be true and this time, my 10 year-old decided to go on strike mid-way, despite the loss of face in front of the other 6 children involved, including his five-year-old sister. Several painful hours later, all was righted by a large bowl of pasta on a sunny terrace and a secret note to self that perhaps I was being a little over ambitious given the ages of the children.
The remainder of the holiday passed in a happy mixture of
gentle walks with the children and more ambitious walks without (while they were safely enrolled in windsurfing and kayaking les- sons). All in all, a big success and a formula I would recommend highly to any active families (though always with the caution that poor weather can ruin it all).
62 FirstEleven Summer 2012
I
will never forget my 5 days at Wickedly Wonderful, last summer. It was my first time going off to camp and I would go again at the drop of a hat! It exceeded all of my sister’s & my expectations. We
left early on a Monday morning and came back late Friday evening, those few days were some of the happiest I have ever experienced! Arriving, we sat around in a circle and stood up announcing our name and our favourite food, all the while looking around trying to work out who was of a similar age and who
you were going to talk to once this activity had finished.
We were separated into groups for our first
day of activities; the sailing camp, pony camp and the rest separated into vague age groups called Bangers, Mash, Ketchup and Beans! It was in my group I met a group of girls who were all my age and are still some of my best friends ever! There was one boy in our group who was from Geneva and his older brother was in the sailing camp and his younger brother in Ketchup, so this way one began to
Left, Gus with cousins and a friend, right, William’s horse Shadow surveys the scenery
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