May 17, 2022 10:03am
In August 2021, 11 current and former students of Rochester Grammar School completed their Gold DofE Qualifying expedition on Dartmoor.
The expedition lasted four days with the students walking, on average, 20 km a day. They started in Princetown and completed a circuit of the South Moor. There are no campsites on the moor so each of the 3 nights the students camped in the wild near a stream which they used for their water supply.
The weather was perfect and very different to the practice expedition where it rained almost non-stop. Although walking in the wild is challenging, and on Dartmoor there are often no clear paths, the students’ navigation was perfect and the students arrived at their planned destinations on time each night.
The Gold Award is now an established part of the RGS DofE programme and we are looking forward to revisiting Dartmoor next summer with the next group of Year 12 students and Year 13 students who couldn’t take part this summer.