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Sixth
Form Scholarship Adventure Leadership
Course, Aviemore, August 2007
Gethin Davies
The Sixth form scholarship
gives each recipient a place on an Adventure
training camp in Grantown-On-Spey,
Scotland. For me it all started very early
on a Monday morning in August, where I
boarded a train that would take me to
London, and after running across central
London, another train to Aviemore. A journey
of 13 hours, yes 13 hours!
By the time the train
reached Sheffield the boys from my selection
group at the Officers and Aircrew selection
centre were on the train and the banter was
already in place! On arriving at Aviemore we
realised that the others on the train must
be on the course, because apart from them it
was empty! The closest comparison to
the Highland journey, would be that to
Hogwarts, it really is that rural. We
woke our legs up and stumbled to the RAF
course marked buses that took us 10miles to
the Royal Air Force development centre, a
place that generally most of the current Air
Force have visited to develop both skills in
leadership and teamwork. The centre is
situated in a very small town, the kind of
town that everyone knows everyone, and as
you can imagine forty seventeen year olds
really aren't inconspicuous!
The centre is a mural to the
RAF with pictures of previous courses all
over the walls, the walk to the bunkroom
takes you past the drying room which turns
out to be the only difference between not
getting trench foot, because as you can
imagine Scotland's rainfall is on par with a
jet wash at close range, but anyway.
We got settled and headed for our first
briefing. The activities of the 2
weeks would be split into; A day's
teambuilding, a day's canoeing, a day's
climbing, a day's mountain biking, a 3 day
mountain bike expedition, RAF Lossiemouth
visit, and then time to sleep! The 2
weeks were meant to be demanding, and
physically arduous, which then allowed us to
be put under pressure when making decisions.
The activities were all planned for us to
work up to an expedition at the mid-end of
the course which would see us wild camp for
two nights in the Scottish highlands. We
started the course with some simple
leadership exercises which our team leader
Sgt Louise Lupo had set up for us. This
allowed me to understand the personalities
of, Nick (a.k.a Regiment) you can imagine
what his scholarships for! Dan,
engineer. Nick 2, another regiment
scholar........yet another regiment scholar,
and me. That completes team 5. We had
6 teams on the course which allowed for some
banter in between activities on who were the
best.
The climbing took place on
the North coast, with us attempting routes
from easy to moderately tough, One of the
OASC officers Chris was with us on the
activity and it was a great insight into a
life in the RAF as the Squadron Leaders on
our course were very senior, with over 50
years in the RAF between them. Following a
few climbs, and very sore muscles we
retreated back to the centre for a night in
the local pub, the Craic, which is the
drinking hole that every course goes too.
The photos that don the walls are an insight
into the previous officers course, but
without doubt the 'bacon butties' at the pub
were the best I've ever tasted!
We woke on the morning of
canoeing at around 06.00, we then realised
that Scotland even during the height of the
summer is a very cold place, with the
temperature around 8 degrees we loaded the
canoes onto the van, for our trip down the
River Spey. We teamed up with the 4th
group, which includes my close friends,
Sean, Liam, Steffan, and Preth. These
guys have been a great support through the
application process and our friendship
developed massively through these 2 weeks of
close living. We paired up and dived
into the boats to practise the capsize
drills, as you can imagine the river wasn't
really as inviting as a tropical lagoon.
But head first we all went in, and we were
cleared to start our descent of the river,
and 6 miles of fun! But there
really is nothing like a pair in a boat
(Liam and Preth) who just cannot keep a
rhythm. Let's just say that
they're boat spent more time grounded on
rocks than it did on the water. The
current allowed us to just keep the boat
nice and straight and the momentum took
us quite easily. We were all shattered by
the time we reached Aviemore, and by the
time the mini-bus door was shut everyone of
us was asleep.
One of the main activities
of the week individually is the
presentation. Every night after dinner
a small group would take the lead and talk
about their chosen subject. This is a
nerve racking thing to do in front of your
peers, but the presentations were of an
extremely high standard. With anything
from Air Cadet Gliding, to Killing a Duck on
the agenda as a presentation. My
personal favourite was when one of the guys
Andrew (known as Nigel to us, it just suited
him) talked about 'Gingerness'. Everyone
laughed themselves to pain, apart from Nigel
who was actually genuinely serious! I
did my talk on 'The Schools Aerospace
Challenge', of which we were fortunate
enough to win last year. The main
expedition was approaching and we had to
start preparing, so the next morning we
received our kit from the stores, which
included our Mountain Bikes with Trailers,
which we loaded with our kit to be self
sufficient on the Mountain. We shot
off down the local trails for a quick blast,
my extensive experience of Mountain Biking
and camping will come into action during
this expedition. The alarms rang, the
exped was here. Final scoffing of normal
food and showers finalised the preparation
as we left the centre. Our bikes were
loaded and off into wild country we went.
The buses stopped suddenly and as I peered
out of the window, I was able to see how the
road ended and a small dirt track led off
into the distance. This seemingly innocent
track would cause extreme fatigue and
problems that would make the Expedition
difficult. We packed up trundled off
into the foggy country, the bikes clunked as
we passed rural farms and old derelict
houses. We stopped at a spot to have
lunch that is distinctly unusual, the valley
floor is completely flat in between the
towering sides, the river trickles past, and
a small track goes into the distance as far
as the eye can see. It hit home that
the expedition we were embarking was really
as dangerous as they made out. At
about 4 that afternoon the weather closed in
and it started lashing it down, the fog was
thick and the morale was very low!
Pedalling on we reached a mountain bothy,
and with the other guys we decided that we
should stay for the night here, So we warmed
up and cooked our food in the dry, with a
nights sleeps of well over 13 hours.
Ah I suppose there's not much that makes a
teenager happier than 13 hours sleep!
As I lay there drifting in and out of sleep
a thunderous noise started to bring me
round, then just as I lifted my head the
whole bothy starts to shake with the down
wash of a RAF helicopter landing, isn't this
Ironic eh! We ran outside, forgetting
about the whole just our underwear situation
and see the RAF Lossiemouth Sea King staring
me right in the face. The air load
master was looking for 2 women that had
gotten lost in the Mountains.
Unfortunately, we hadn't seen them and we
retreated to the Bothy to start breakfast.
What a wake up call....
Today would see us attempt
to cross the ridge that towered above us,
and so we started the winding climb at
around 8am. The group were all
fatigued, but Rugby wasn't going anywhere
quick, he was in immense pain and his knee
was in no fit state to ride up over the
peaks. And so, we had to back
track to a rendezvous point where we are
able to send Rugby back to base safely, and
with as little damage to his ever worsening
knee. The Sea Kings crew flew over
again as we were travelling past the ravine
like area next to the river, the air load
master gave us a wave. To which we all
spent the whole morning discussing what we
wanted to do in the RAF. Apart from
Dan, even the boys with regiment
scholarships wanted to become pilots, and
the discussion lead to Nick a Glider G1
Pilot who showed us a video of him looping a
vigilant. Which is insane! This
morale booster allowed us to push on to the
RV without any trouble. The loss of Rugby
was a big downer to the team, as we wanted
to finish together. Luckily for him,
he got the night in the officers mess in
Leuchars. We got a small tent, ahh.
The evening spot to camp was about 11miles
on from the RV, a small game area where
there is a quite open forest and large area
to wild camp! I never thought I'd say
but my 92% chicken skin pâté tasted as if it
had been prepared in the Ritz. Thoroughly
topped up with calories we tented down and
called it a night. Sharing a tent with
Reg was an experience, every half hour, just
as I'm nodding off, WHACKKK. One of
nicks arms slams into my face. I
suppose that's karma, as earlier in the day
everyone had sneaked some of their kit into
Reg's trailer. As we woke in the rural
area in Scotland, the aim of the course
become very apparent. How this
situational training allows the RAF to
develop their force in an area where bad
teamwork and leadership could have very hard
consequences. This is a course that makes
people into serviceman.
We finished the exped after
another 12 miles of track riding, and we
rode into the centre at 3pm on the
afternoon. Our kit went back and we
realised that the work we put in had taken
us into the deepest rural areas of the
Cairngorms and back again, completely self
sufficient as a team. The friendships within
the team provide me with some fond memories,
one that springs to mind is when Nick wanted
to warm his gloves up, we all are
sitting round the trangias and Nick says 'Ah
my gloves are going to be toastie after
heating up', I reply, 'What are you steaming
them'. Then as he lifts them up, the gloves
in melted form look like stringy cheese as
he gasps! He had to suffer cold hands
all day! From laughing at Steff's "Im
not posh your just common", or Nijmegan
going mad as he realises there's a sandwich
under his pillow, or just antics that took
place on the exped's the course was some of
the best time of my life.
We finished the course with
a day at RAF Lossiemouth where the Tornado's
rule supreme, then after a quick nose around
we went back and refilled our stomachs with
a delicious barbeque. The 2 weeks at
Grantown flew by, and there's enough
memories to fill books. I have made some
amazing friends and
had some great experiences in Scotland.
If you are thinking of entering the RAF then
definitely apply for the sixth form scheme,
It is a great insight into your future life.
Thanks, Gethin |
