The Duke of Edinburgh expedition was an exhausting but most definitely rewarding experienee. It involved walking sixteen miles over two days and camping overnight in a field surrounded by gorgeous views of countryside hills, and although this conjures up an image of bliss, the walking was certainly a challenge! But at the end of the weekend when we collapsed onto a road in the middle of Alresford, we all felt a remarkable sense of achievement, and we are all looking forward to the real expedition.

The 16-mile walk was performed in groups of seven and was separated into 'checkpoints'. Between each checkpoint, where we would rest briefly and have a small snack, the groups would walk for varying times: sometimes half an hour, sometimes almost two hours, but with each section of the walk completed, the sense of achievement was an incentive to keep going. The walk took us through wide fields, often muddy but beautiful forest paths and along roads and footpaths, and some of the views we had the chance to appreciate were stunning, especially with the wonderful sunny weather we were so lucky to enjoy. When we arrived at camp that afternoon and set up our tents before eating some quite interesting foodstuffs (for me and my friends, a selection of unusually flavoured but strangely delicious noodles), there was some time to relax before the night. The moon was beautiful: bright orange and unusually large, we were fortunate enough to come across a harvest moon night.

The next morning, we had a quick breakfast, packed up our tents and set off for a second long but beautiful walk. Although we were all aching from the previous day's hike, we couldn't help but enjoy the second walk which took us to our end destination of Alresford, where we collapsed, quite exhausted, with a great sense of accomplishment within us.

The practice expedition was an extremely enjoyable and rewarding event which has very much prepared us for the real thing.