Sorry we have been away for a while!
We have been recovering from our Practice expedition which was hard to say the least!
We will be going in to a little more depth in due course but so you guys have a quick overview of what we did while we were away we have written a few words...
Saturday- We packed up the van and sorted all the equipment then met the RBKC road safety team for a ride around the area and went to have a picnic in the park whilst learning key tops such as 'always keep your fingers over the breaks and keep your bum on the seat when you emergency stop! It was great to learn to bike ride on the roads and it made us so much more confident. Especially as we got to practice more with the trailers and baby seats.
Monday- Packed the van, with all the bikes and bags etc, planned our food menus, then went food shopping in Sainsburys with our tent partners- We went over budget :-/ Not sure how that happened! We drove to the first campsite singing all the way and keeping the kids entertained. To pitch the tents we took it in turns o watch the kids and pitch, we set up our sleeping bags and mats etc and tried to make ourselves feel at home! Then we cooked our amazing dinners
Tuesday- Practice cycling around and getting the hang of loading and unloading the van and setting up the trailers etc. We went back to the same campsite that night and cooked dinner. We also made tea and hot chocolate at watched the stars :-)
Wednesday- We went cycling for the day, got stuck in a few ditches, split up as a team (Naughty :-/) got really wet and fed up and nearly gave up all together! The kids were wet too as the trailers weren't as weather proof as we had hoped! We were all pretty miserable until we saw the amazing campsite we were staying in! (By amazing we don't mean 5* deluxe we just mean it had warm toilets and a clean shower!) It also had a dryer so the amazing staff stayed up late drying our clothes, shoes, sleeping bags and pjs!
Thursday- In the campsite this morning the kids played in the playground and it was the first time we saw them all play together really happily and it was lovely to watch, there was also a lake so some of us went for a walk to see the fishermen. The night before we had a crisis meeting and decided to leave the bikes in the van for the day as we were having so many problems and the staff we going to try to find extra waterproof covers for the trailers. We planned a walking route to the beat and it was lovely. We all worked as a team and played with the kids, we sang and took in the lovely scenery. 2 of the kids had their bikes and rode the whole way (about 2 hours) and the other older kids walked the entire way! The little ones Reon and Savai, were in the trailers that were put together like buggies for the day. We had a great time at the beach playing with the kids and when we got back to the campsite we had a team meeting whilst learning how to repair a puncture.
We also had one 2 ones with the staff about how we think its all going and what we want to change for next time.
Friday- This was the best day as we were all so happy to be going home :-) We packed up, had a final cycle- the best yet as there wasn't many problems with the bikes and the moral was high. We experimented with saddling the kids, letting them run next to us, them riding etc and on the way home had a debrief in Mc Ds with hot chocolates and ice cream!
We will be adding a section on all the learnings we have taken from this expedition
(there is a long list!)
We will blog again soon!
Thanks for reading- Take a look at the quotes below!
The Change Together Team xx
'It rained the whole time. Even waterproofs weren't waterproof the way that rain was coming down! It made it really hard to bond as a team as we were confined to the tents trying to get the kids to sleep with the LOUD sound of rain on the tent. Looking back we could have made more effort to socialise and bond with the others but at the time we were so miserable and grumpy that we felt trapped!'
'It has reinforced the idea that I can do anything I really want to do as long as I stick it out and work hard. It inspires me to aspire for more.'
'The expedition was unlike all of the other ones I've done. We thought the bikes would make the expedition easier or at least manageable with the kids but there was always problems with the equipment so we were stoping and starting more than we were cycling!'
'I learnt to ride a bike without severely injuring anyone and I can put up a tent within 10 minutes'
