Gorge Walking!

Friday of that week and 8 of us piled into cars and set of for Wales at some ungodly hour. Eds weekend had arrived! It was officially his stag do, but we were far from your ‘traditional’ stag party. First of all the first day would be spent dressed as morons, throwing ourselves into freezing cold water off of waterfalls and the like in a Gorge in Wales. Living in Dubai means that it is really quite rare to feel cold unless you accidentally turned the AC down too low. We started with an acclimatisation jump! Hands in, jump in, don’t panic, its gonna be cold! 1st in was Ol, then Ralph and then our friend Giles! The first ‘jump’ was no more than a step off a rock 2ft above the water level. Somehow Giles got this wrong and not only did he panic and look like a puppy learning to swim. He somehow managed to pull his back. This provided much hilarity for the rest of the weekend for the rest of us as Giles had to walk around looking like he had crapped himself. I jumped in and immediately turned into a woman. You are supposed to pop up and say your name so the guide nows you are ok but the cold literally takes our breath away, your fingers feel like they are going to come off and trying to do a swimming stroke is painful as the cold penetrates every part of your body! Brilliant fun. The rest of the time was spent crawling through gaps, navigating pitch black caves and throwing ourselves off progressively higher rock formations. Our only regret being we forgot a waterproof camera and will have to rely on the mental images as reminders – specifically Giles floundering!