Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to the Cake Stall at the Burghley Hunter Trials two weeks ago. We raised £208 for our expedition to Mount Everest.

Since then we have been on a training weekend with the cadets to determine whether we would be able to walk over a long distance, carrying a heavy load.

We all arrived at Beckingham Training Camp on the evening of Friday 4^th April. We set up our tents and were briefed on the weekend ahead. Though it was freezing cold we had to put our heads down and attempt to get some sleep.

The organiser of the expedition, Captain Davanna, was testing us over the whole weekend, to determine whether we are all mentally geared for the strenuous time we will be having in Nepal. We had to get up and have had breakfast by 8 o clock the next morning, without the adults having to intervene. We thought 6 o clock would give us enough time to rub the sleep from our eyes, dress, try and warm ourselves up, cook and eat, and dismantle our tents. However it was only after we were dressed etc. that we were told the tents were staying up, and that we could have in fact slept in for another half an hour. None of the girls were very impressed! The boys on the other hand didn’t care as long as they were fed and warm.

One of the more amusing points of the morning consisted if the bag weighing. Cpt Davanna wanted us to be carrying a minimum of 12kg for the day. We had however been told to pack lightly, so several of us had to add weight onto our bags. One of those was Edd Snoxall, with only a pack weighing 10kg, we girls managed to dump half of the contents of our ration packs onto him. The many jokes about his non existent beard, and the colour of his waterproof trousers were the cause of much hilarity throughout the weekend.

We split into our groups consisting of around 3 cadets, and either one or two adults, before setting off on our set route or 18 miles. My group managed to arrive back at camp after 6 hours, a feat we were very proud of, only to find that one group had walked exactly the same route in only 4 and a half hours!!!

Once everyone was back at camp we had a group meeting, to discuss fundraising tactics, and what we were to expect in Nepal! It opened our eyes to how difficult it is going to be.

Lydia Chalmers