Recently, we departed our school, Charleville C.B.S. to go to Ballyhass Lakes. People were struggling to keep their eyes open at the earlier time than usual before school commenced. Ms. Costello along with my 23 classmates went to Ballyhass that day. As we got closer and closer, people were getting more and more excited. When we arrived in the car park, the director of Ballyhass greeted us. He introduced himself and told us what activities we would be doing. The TY class of 24 was divided into two groups in alphabetical order. My group started with canoeing. One or two classmates weren’t too fond of water but as a team we encouraged them to take part and have fun, which they did. Two instructors assisted us with the canoes. We all had great fun racing and swapping canoes with some getting wet.
Low ropes followed the canoeing. The low ropes activity really brought the group together as a team. Communication was vital. As a team, we worked our way across the challenge and successfully completed the activity in 40 minutes, which was described as amazing by our instructor, Cathal.
Next was the gladiator. The gladiator tested people’s fear of heights. We had two or three confident leader’s who led the way as an example, making a mess of themselves but causing a laugh along the way. But things started to get serious with fearful classmates up next. No No!, was all you could get out of them, but we encouraged them to have a go and they completed a certain amount of the climb. Abseiling was our last activity of the day. All we had to do was walk down a 45 metre cliff backwards. No one really had a problem with this activity as we were tied onto ropes. Races took place also but it was a bit of fun.
My experience of Ballyhass Lakes was amazing and speaking on behalf of the class, we all had a very enjoyable time, having fun but also working well as a team and conquering our fears.