What a weekend…..
We have just returned (and recovered!) from our second Summer Blast weekend with yet another fantastic group of teens! This year’s Summer Blast took place at Shannaghmore Outdoor Education Centre in Newcastle sandwiched between the backdrop of the gorgeous Mourne Mountains and the Irish Sea – Thank goodness we had the weather on our side!
We kicked off the weekend with the fantastically entertaining Joe at The Gathering Drum who kept us all on our toes and on the beat with his African drumming workshop!
After lunch we all suited up and headed off to Castlewellan with our canoes in tow. We all helped to prepare the boats for some Canadian canoeing and took off in small groups to explore the lough…..and steal Dr McCrossan’s boat! On our way back to dry land our competitive nature kicked in which resulted in a 3-way splash off between each of the boats….fortunately we were all far too wet to work out who won!
Once we all had a much needed shower and some chill out time in the games room it was time for Nightline, we all wore blindfolds and had to put our trust in our teammates under the guidance of our Instructors Leo and George who turned out to be not so trustworthy after all!!
We chilled out on Saturday night with a DVD and lots of well earned munchies as we had an early start the next morning for our high and low rope challenges….The high ropes looked ok from the security of flat ground but once we took in the view at the top of the course the challenge seemed to become a lot bigger! Although the low ropes were a lot closer to the ground they were every bit as challenging…particularly when the alternative to balancing on the ropes was to plunge into a stinky, muck filled swamp…. let’s just say not everyone finished the low rope challenge as clean as they started!!
After a weekend full of fun, laughs, overcoming fears, meeting new friends, trying new activities and a few hundred whoop whoops we have to thank everyone that made this Summer Blast a success; HUGE THANK YOU to Catherine, Jan and Claire our Specialist Nurses and Dr Chris Lockhart and Dr Brian McCrossan for your support over the weekend and most importantly to our fantastic group of teens for coming along and giving your all this weekend….we certainly had a blast and we hope you did too!! CHT Team
If you are aged between 12 – 16 and would like to get involved in our Teen Programme we would love to hear from you! Email [email protected] or come along to our Family Conference on 17th October and take part in our teen workshops!
