This is the second time VICTA has organised this activity, a three day break in the Snowdon area. This was a first time activity for all the young people who attended and the first VICTA activity for three of them.
The first day the group travelled to Penrhyn Quarry, Bethesda to take part in the Zip Wire Velocity experience, which is the fastest in the world and the longest in Europe. Everyone felt like it was an experience of a lifetime and thought it felt just like flying. There were two parallel wires, this felt like you were racing against the person next to you. The group then checked in at the Royal Victoria Hotel. The volunteers were then given a briefing by Karen Wade on how to guide and assist a visually impaired young person. By the end of the day everyone was so tired that they just went straight to bed.
The second day was a lot more active and tiring! The group travelled up Snowdon Mountain on the train, which was very squished as every carriage had to fit 10 people inside and they weren’t very big. This meant that everyone was very close and it wasn’t a comfortable journey. When we arrived at the top of the mountain each volunteer was paired with a young person to guide and assist down the mountain. As we were going down the mountain one of the volunteers, Tim, lead half of the group the wrong way, but thankfully we found our way back on track and continued our journey down the mountain! We got to the halfway point after approximately 2 hours of walking, which gave everyone the opportunity to stop and eat their lunch.
After lunch we carried on our journey down the mountain, which went very well and everyone managed to do it with plenty of time to spare which allowed us all to get a quick drink and a cake, also to have a quick chat on how everyone felt about the walk down the mountain, before heading back to the hotel for a quick nap before going out for dinner. When everyone was refreshed and ready to go, we all headed over to a pub for dinner. After dinner everyone walked back to the hotel to watch the football, which was Wales v Portugal, and of course everyone was supporting Wales to win but unfortunately they did not, so we all went to bed feeling a bit depressed.
On the last day everyone was aching from the long walk on the previous day so we had breakfast and packed all our bags ready to leave at 9:00 for the train station. Everyone all said their goodbyes and thanked the VICTA staff for hosting such a great few days.
As always, we couldn’t have done it without our excellent group of volunteers who threw themselves into everything that was asked of them. The encouragement, care and support they showed to all the young people was greatly appreciated by everyone who took part. It was an excellent few days and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.
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