Gospel Brothers
Past Events
Kepplewray August 2008
The Kepplewray Project is situated in the picturesque setting of the South Lakes in Cumbria, this activity centre offers challenging adventure for all ages and its Christian ethos of inclusion means that everybody is included even people with physical or mental barriers. Again the power of prayer worked, after a week of rain a glorious sunny Saturday arrived, we meet in Barnoldswick at our normal pick-up point outside the Co-op and we were on the road for just after seven o’clock. Light traffic meant that we arrived for our welcome coffee before this weekend’s residential groups had finished breakfast.
Our first activity of the day was the 50 foot tree climb; this took some of our party to new heights and was a very exciting opening challenge for the group. We all took turns to climb the tree, the record stood at just 24 seconds and was set by a local lad, and we may have possibly cleared the first 6 feet in that time. A bell at the top of the tree indicated a successful climb.
A very quick break for refreshments and a sugar rush, it’s hard work this climbing lark and then we were off again, this time to Donkey Rock. This is a sheer polished rock face about ten minutes walk away, the Kepplewray team were ahead of us and had set up an abseiling line from a dizzy height of 60 feet.
Bob, an experienced abseiler of somewhat great renown, took the lead and showed us all the trademark Bob Kitson “Shuffle Bum” technique. Many of us attempted this inspiring trademark move, but it was beyond us, only Bob had the physique to carry off such a brash abseiling move.
Like the Christian commandos we weren’t, we all hit the bottom running ready for another go. Two jumps was all the time we had, because lunch was being served back at the centre. Soup and a couple of plates of sandwiches that could have feed the whole Mission, this was essential tucker for what we had planned in the afternoon.
A ghyll scramble up Stickle Beck, this water course had been in flood only hours earlier, but we were kitted out with waterproofs that helped for the first few minutes. We ascended the water course waterfalls and all, wading and swimming through pools of water that were slightly deeper than us, the water was a lovely four degrees fresh from the mountain. We reached our point of exit from the ghyll in about two hours an assent that seemed like a twenty minutes scramble.
Then it was homeward bound with a thanks to the leaders who had kept us safe for the day.
